Before We Were Famous
by Crystine Decepticon
Summary: Heroic Decepticons AU. Decepticon-centric. "Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy." Stories of fun, friendship, rivalries and the notorious Prank Wars. Throw into the mix a little too much high-grade, and what do you get? Chapter 9 posted!
1. Chapter 1 - The First Day

_*Revised 09/08/2019*_

 **Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 1 – The First Day

 _A long time ago, very soon after our creation, in the days prior to the Great Wars and towards the end of the Golden Age, Decepticons were sent to the Cybertron Combat Training and Intelligence Academy to complete basic military training. But that's its proper name – we just called it the War Academy._

 _The Autobots had their own Academy, and we had ours, before the two were merged to become the War Academy as it stands today. We occasionally got to interact with them during special events like competitions, but back in those days it wasn't anything like it is nowadays. In those days, we weren't at war with them._

 _My time at the Academy was a big highlight for me. I learned a lot of stuff about war and combat, it's true, and I also learned a lot about myself, but the thing I remember most about the time I spent there is the fun we all had in what eventually became known as the Prank Wars. No one was immune from them. If you'd have asked anyone, they'd have probably told you that I was the biggest troublemaker of them all. Well, I don't know about that, though I can say with all sincerity that I wasn't always the one responsible, regardless of how much I would have liked that to be true._

 _But, let's just start at the beginning. We'll get to the Prank Wars later, I promise. The following stories are actual memoirs from our early days at the War Academy, when many of us were… well, still a little fresh off the assembly line, if you know what I mean. If nothing else, I hope you get a real kick out of them, as I did._

Δ _Skywarp_

* * *

This day marked a momentous occasion in the life of every new Decepticon recruit. Each had been carefully selected, after enduring a month long entry process, to undergo year-long basic military training. Once this was complete, each recruit would go on to specialise in their chosen area of expertise – combat, intelligence, communications, science, technology, and politics, to name just a few. Then they would be ready to go out into the world and join the official Decepticon ranks.

Skywarp was just one of the many hundreds of new recruits gathered in the assembly hall, which was filled to capacity. It was already late evening, yet the hall was still crowded and noisy with the new intake of students for the year. Amidst the mayhem, recruits attempted to organize themselves into groups according to their assigned Houses, more than a little eager to find out whom they would be sharing their quarters with for the rest of the year.

"Sky! Hey, Sky, over here!" Thundercracker waved a hand in the air to get Skywarp's attention, and then pushed his way through the crowd to reach him. "I've been looking all over for you. Thought I'd lost you for good."

Skywarp held a data pad in his hand; he'd been staring down at it in mild confusion. "Hey, Tee Cee." He looked up at his friend and smiled. Thundercracker was one of the few Decepticon recruits that he already knew – in fact, Thundercracker was one of his best friends.

"Everything okay?" Thundercracker said, pointing to his friend's data pad.

"Hm?" Skywarp looked back down at the pad. "Oh. Yeah, I just don't get what I'm supposed to do."

"Let me see that." Thundercracker grabbed the pad from his hand and studied it for a moment, then looked back at him and grinned. "Congratulations. Looks like we're house mates. See? You've been assigned to House Delta – same as me." He showed Skywarp his own data pad.

"Oh, that's great," Skywarp said, smiling. Then he looked around. "I wonder who else has been assigned to House Delta?"

In that instant, there was an announcement made over the loud speaker. The noise in the assembly hall temporarily subsided as the front desk attendant spoke. "Welcome to the Decepticon Academy. Um, if you still haven't been assigned a House, please make your way to the front desk. Schedules and campus maps are available here if you don't already have them. Everybody else, enjoy the rest of the night, but don't stay up too late. Orientation begins in the morning."

Thundercracker shrugged. "Dunno. Let's get out of here and find out."

"I'm not sure how to get to our Sector, let alone our assigned House," Skywarp said uncertainly.

"Don't worry; I think I know where it is. Come on," Thundercracker said, and led the way out of the assembly hall.

On their way along the myriad of walkways through the large campus grounds, the two seekers walked by several other new recruits, loud and boisterous, who staggered past with empty cans of energon in their hands. Lots of partying and loud music could be heard in the distance, presumably coming from the various Houses.

" _Wooohooooooo_!" one recruit yelled out, laughing, as he brushed past Skywarp. Then he carelessly threw his empty canister over his shoulder, which bounced off Skywarp's wing tip before clattering to the floor.

"Hey, watch it!" Skywarp called out, and turned to look behind him, but the Decepticon recruit appeared oblivious to everything around him, obviously in a drunken stupor.

"He's totally wasted," Thundercracker said, stating the obvious.

His friend stared after the reveller for a little while longer, before turning to look at him. "Think that'll be us in a few hours' time?"

Thundercracker laughed, clapping Skywarp on the back. "We could do worse, I suppose."

 _I remember that first day like it was only yesterday. That's when I first got to meet many of the Decepticons that I'd be spending the rest of my life with. Almost immediately, I felt that it was fate that had brought us all under the one roof – like we were all meant to be together, from that day onwards. I made many new life-long friends at the Academy, as well as a few enemies along the way but, all in all, I wouldn't change my time there for anything._

As House Delta finally came into view, loud music with a prominent bass could be heard coming from the large residence, while pulsing light escaped from the windows. The sounds of lively voices told the two seekers that a party was definitely underway.

The two seekers stopped in front of the door, and listened to the laughter and occasional shouting coming from the house.

"Ready to meet our new room mates?" Thundercracker asked, smiling encouragingly.

Skywarp nodded, and then pressed the buzzer on the door. After a minute, when no one came to greet them, he tried again. This time the door opened, and after a moment they saw the welcome sight of a familiar face.

"Thundercracker! Skywarp! What took you two so long? We didn't want to start the celebrations without you." It was another Decepticon seeker, one who was already well known to the both of them. He showed them inside, and then closed the door again before throwing them each an unopened canister of energon. The music that had been playing before suddenly stopped, as did the pulsating light.

"Starscream? I had no idea you were here as well," Skywarp said, pleasantly surprised to see him.

"Thanks, Starscream," Thundercracker said, and then looked to Skywarp, smiling. "I wanted to surprise you."

"Yeah, who would have thought? The three of us all assigned to the same House together," Skywarp said, breaking open his drink.

"Indeed, it _is_ a pleasant surprise," Starscream replied happily. "I could not have wished for better companions than the two of you." He looked around at the room full of Decepticon recruits, who were all seated around a table. Unfamiliar faces stared back at the two latest arrivals. "Here, let me introduce you to our new friends. This is Soundwave," he said, pointing to a blue and white cassette guardian.

Soundwave pressed a button on his chest to eject four cassetticons. "Ravage, Laserbeak, Frenzy, Rumble: greet our new friends."

As the four mini robots ejected out of Soundwave's chest compartment, transforming in mid-air to land with their feet on the ground, Skywarp and Thundercracker looked on in awe.

"I've never seen any Decepticon like you before," Skywarp said to Rumble.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Rumble replied, grinning, as Laserbeak perched atop Skywarp's shoulder.

Frenzy greeted Thundercracker in a similar manner, while Ravage nudged the seeker's leg.

"I'll bet you're the life of the party, huh?" Thundercracker said to Frenzy, who grinned back at the blue and grey seeker, as he reached down to stroke Ravage.

"Most mechs can't tell us two apart," Frenzy said, pointing to his twin.

"That's funny. I get that a lot with Skywarp, here," Thundercracker replied in amusement.

Starscream continued his introductions. "And this over here is Astrotrain, and Blitzwing, and Octane. They tell us they're triple changers."

"Greetings, newcomers," Astrotrain said, holding up his canister.

Blitzwing nodded at the newcomers. "Hey," he said, while Octane grinned at them.

"And these fine Decepticons are Onslaught, Vortex," Starscream paused, as he tried to recall all their names.

"Brawl," said one of them.

"Oh, yes, that's right. Brawl, Blast Off, and… Swindle?" Starscream continued.

"That's me," said the one called Swindle, smiling up at the newcomers as he sipped at his can of energon.

Starscream addressed the group of seated Decepticons. "Oh, and in case you didn't already know, these two are the greatest seekers to have ever been created, after me, of course: Thundercracker, and Skywarp."

"Heh. Thanks for the warm introductions, Starscream," Thundercracker said, as Skywarp smiled back at everyone.

"Now that we've got all the formalities out of the way, let the celebrations begin," Starscream continued, and no sooner had he said this than the loud music began to play again. Thundercracker realized that it was coming from Soundwave. Then the new recruits returned to drinking and chatting amongst themselves.

 _Thundercracker and I spent the next several hours getting to know our new room mates a little better and just basically settling in. We all got along pretty well from the outset, even after we'd all had one too many canisters of energon. It was a great start to my time at the Academy, and I was really starting to feel like I was exactly where I was meant to be._

"Where'd you get that music?" Skywarp asked Soundwave. "I like it a lot."

"Thank you. It's my own composition." Soundwave had a unique voice – it was deep and sounded as though it was modified through a modulator.

"I like your voice, too," Skywarp said. "It's, I dunno. Interesting."

"Thank you. I like your colors," Soundwave replied.

Meanwhile, Thundercracker was querying the triple changers on their enhanced transformation abilities. "So, you mean to tell me that all three of you can change into not just one other form, but _two_?"

"Sure can," Astrotrain replied, "and not only that, we can do it _fast_."

"They don't call us triple changers for nothing, you know," Octane said.

"Yeah? Well, I wanna see you do it," Thundercracker challenged, the high-grade energon now starting to take effect. "I won't believe it until I see it with my own optics."

Astrotrain laughed. "Maybe I'll show you later."

Starscream was also obviously under the influence of a little high-grade, though he seemed to be keeping it under control pretty well. "I'm curious, are you all related?" he asked the five non triple-changing Decepticons, who were all seated together.

"Nah, not really," said the one called Brawl; he was a tough-looking Decepticon, but then most Decepticons were tough-looking in their own way.

"Well, we _did_ all come online at the same time… does that count for anything?" said Blast Off.

"Of course it does. Thundercracker, Skywarp and I share the same creation time as well – right down to the precise astro-second, in fact," Starscream replied.

 _So, as you can see all was going smoothly, that is, until we were visited by recruits from a neighbouring House. I think they were just bored and looking for trouble._

When Skywarp answered the front door, he was confronted by a group of very over-energized, very rowdy recruits. He had to block the doorway with his frame to prevent them from pushing their way past him to get inside the house uninvited. "What do you robot chickens want?" he said to them.

One of them looked at him with derision. "Robot chickens? Who're you calling robot chickens, aft face?" All his friends behind him cheered in support.

Skywarp was about to shut the door on them, when one of them grabbed him by the arm and pulled him outside. He was soon surrounded by a group of twelve unfamiliar Decepticon recruits. "Uh, Thundercracker, Screamer… I think I need a little help out here!"

The same one laughed at him, teasing him. " _Awwww_ , this pretty mech needs a little help. What's the matter, are you _chicken_?"

To Skywarp's relief, several of his new room mates ventured outside to see what all the commotion was about.

"Hey, what's going on out here?" Thundercracker called out to them.

The leader of the group turned his attention away from Skywarp to look at the other seeker, and walked over to him. "Oh, hello. We just wanted to come over and introduce ourselves, you know?" he said, putting on a fake smile. He smelled strongly of high-grade fuel. "We're from House Omni, and we just wanted to borrow some of your energon."

"Yeah, we're fresh out," another one of them said.

"Sorry, but we don't have any energon to spare," Starscream replied. "Perhaps you shouldn't have all gotten so wasted?"

"Is that so?" the leader said, looking at the Delta Decepticons each in turn. "Well, in that case perhaps your friend over here will give up some of _his_ energon for us?" He turned to Skywarp, as his friends started to form a circle around the black and purple seeker.

Thundercracker stepped forward, pointing threateningly at the bully. "Don't you touch him!"

"And who's gonna stop us, huh?" the bully leered back.

"We will. Now I suggest you all return to your House and stay there, before you regret it." It was Onslaught; he had stepped forward to answer House Omni's challenge.

The moment that followed was so tense that one could have almost sliced through it with an energon blade.

Starscream whispered to Onslaught and Soundwave. "They look like a bunch of robot chickens. We can take them."

 _That's when I threw the first punch, and all hell broke loose. In all fairness, it wasn't an even fight. They were slagged well before the last punch was thrown. I've got to admit, though – it was fun, and I learned, for the first time, just how well we all worked together as a team. It made me feel proud to be one of the Deltas._

 _Ravage and Rumble acted as a great distraction, long enough for Thundercracker to deliver an effective uppercut to the unfortunate Omni who happened to be standing in front of him. Astrotrain and Blitzwing each flattened two of them at once. Starscream took care of Omni leader's best friend, while Onslaught took the leader head on, defeating him easily. Brawl? They seemed too afraid to even approach him, even in their intoxicated state; I think he and his four companions enjoyed the fight though, but beating the slag out of the Omnis even more so. Soundwave and I wiped the floor with whoever was still left. Octane couldn't help but laugh the whole time. We had all taken our fair share of dents and cuts, but all in all, it was an easy victory for House Delta._

"Well, we really took care of them, didn't we? Maybe next time they'll think twice before…" Starscream said, pointing and staggering into his fellow seekers.

Thundercracker caught him before he fell over. "Easy, Starscream. Come on, let's get you inside."

 _And that, pretty much, sums up our first day at the War Academy. We all left the off-lined members of House Omni where they had fallen, face first on the ground, and followed Thundercracker and Starscream inside; the hour was getting late, and we needed to get enough recharge time in if we were going to make it to orientation tomorrow morning._


	2. Chapter 2 - The Other Houses

XinterestingX: All my stories are set in the Heroic Decepticons Alternate Universe, where yes certain characters (such as the three seekers) do get along. Megatron may appear in this story later on, though not as a recruit.

Starfire201: Fifth name added - thanks for pointing that out!

* * *

 **Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 2 – The Other Houses

 _Earlier that day at House Omni…_

"Now listen up, robot turkeys. Whatever I say, goes. If I tell you to lick tail pipe, you lick tail pipe. Got it? Then I just might start to tolerate you losers." Motormaster looked around at his house mates in turn, his arms crossed and looking miserable. He was the largest and strongest cadet of House Omni, and could easily get away with treating the others like slag.

"Get fragged," said Dead End, breaking open a canister of high-grade. Next to him, Drag Strip, Wildrider and Breakdown looked bored. The five of them were related by creation time, having all come online at the same time, and were already familiar with one another. So it had been no surprise that they had all been assigned to spend the rest of the year together in the same House.

Also assigned to House Omni were Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder. They remained huddled together in a group and did not speak much. Rather, they liked to watch.

When there was a knock at the door, no one bothered to get up, but the sound of the buzzer was annoyingly persistent. Motormaster gave the three Watchers a glare, so Spyglass took the hint, and let the newcomers in.

"Welcome to House Omni," Drag Strip said to them, before distributing canisters of energon around. He stared at the newcomers, noticing that they all looked exactly the same.

"Hello, I'm Warrior," said the first one.

"You don't look like no warrior to me," Motormaster retorted. "You look like a robot turkey."

"Welcome, Warrior," said Breakdown, taking a gulp of his energon.

The second newcomer introduced himself to the group. "I'm Warrior."

And the third. "My name is Warrior."

The fourth –

"No, wait, don't tell me–" Motormaster began.

– "Warrior."

No one spoke for a long moment, as they all tried to work out how they were going to tell the four Warriors apart.

Until Dead End broke the silence. "F*** me dead."

 _House Zeta:_

"Well, guys, we made it into the Academy," Scrapper said, holding up a canister of high-grade in celebration. He and his five closest friends had all been assigned to the same House, along with three other recruits named Shrapnel, Kickback and Bombshell. "Here's to us!"

"I'll drink to that," said Hook.

"Yep, we are the _greatest_ ," said Long Haul, breaking open a canister and raising it to his mouth. "Bottom's up."

"Bottom's up!" echoed Bonecrusher, Mixmaster and Scavenger, as they all took a swig of their drinks at the same time. This year was going to be a great year.

 _House Alpha:_

Dirge was glad that his two best friends, Thrust and Ramjet, had been assigned to the same House as he. He wasn't glad, however, that he would also be sharing his quarters with a bunch of loser recruits: Greasepit, Misfire, Triggerhappy, Slugslinger, and Blowpipe.

So to take his mind off his misfortune, Dirge decided that it would be a great time to do a little exploring. "C'mon, the night's still young," he said to Thrust and Ramjet as he headed for the door.

"Hey, can we go with you guys?" Blowpipe asked as he watched the three jets leave.

Dirge glanced at his two best friends, and then at the new recruits. "Uh… on one condition," he said.

Misfire looked hopeful. "What condition?"

"You agree to be our slaves for the rest of the week," Dirge answered, his expression serious. "Do exactly as we tell you, when we tell you, and then maybe we'll let you come with us."

"What? No slagging way," said Greasepit.

"Suit yourselves. Stay here and be losers, I don't care," Dirge answered with a shrug, and started to walk out.

"No, wait–" Misfire said.

"You're not seriously going to agree to it?" Slugslinger said to him, incredulous.

"It's only for a week. It probably won't be as bad as it sounds," Misfire reasoned. "Uh… all right, we'll do it."

"Good," Dirge said to them. "Then, let's go."

 _House Omni, two hours later…_

Motormaster, being double the size of everyone else, had consumed double the amount of high-grade than anybody else. Until there was not a drop left in the house.

"I'm bored," Wildrider said. "Let's go kick some tail pipe." He was completed wasted, just like the rest of House Omni. Though, none were more wasted than the Warriors, since they were physically the smallest among them and so the high-grade had hit them the fastest.

"Where are the femmebots?" Viewfinder asked, as he began to head for the door. "I want to see if there're any femmes around." The Warriors all got up and staggered to the door, following the Watchers, eager to find some femmes.

"Why do you care?" Drag Strip asked them.

"I think he wants to watch them," Dead End whispered to him.

"I don't think there are any femmes," Breakdown informed the Watchers. Then he got up and pushed past the new Omni recruits. "But we'll help you look for some, anyways."

By now it was dark outside, and many of the other recruits on campus were partying; there was a lot of loud noise coming from the other houses.

House Omni began to roam the campus grounds looking for femmes. They were very loud, kicking empty canisters that littered the walkways and generally harassing passers-by as they went on their way.

But the night wore on and eventually they had to give up their search, so instead they decided to concentrate their efforts on looking for some more energon. Or trouble – whichever showed up first.

They came across a house that looked like it might have some energon to spare. Breakdown pressed the buzzer on the door, as the other recruits of House Omni shouted and yelled at one another, still very much over-energized. When the door opened, they tried to force their way inside the house, but the resident recruit would not let them.

He was a purple and black seeker. "What do you robot chickens want?" he said to them.

Of course, Motormaster would not stand for such a pretty mech speaking to him in such a way. "Robot chickens? Who're you calling robot chickens, aft face?" The seeker was about to close the door in their faces, when Wildrider grabbed his arm and pulled him outside.

The seeker called to his friends for help, so Motormaster teased him some more. Then another seeker asked what was going on.

"Oh, hello. We just wanted to come over and introduce ourselves, you know? We're from House Omni, and we just wanted to borrow some of your energon," Motormaster said to them.

"Yeah, we're fresh out," Wildrider said.

"Sorry, but we don't have any energon to spare. Perhaps you shouldn't have all gotten so wasted?" a third seeker answered.

"Is that so? Well, in that case perhaps your friend over here will give up some of _his_ energon for us?" Motormaster again.

"Don't you touch him!" The blue and grey seeker.

"And who's gonna stop us, huh?"

And then, well…

You know the rest.

 _Meanwhile, House Prima:_

The five femme recruits of House Prima were the only femmes to have been selected to attend the Decepticon War Academy this year, and had spent most of the day getting to know one another and drinking high-grade.

"Huh, that's nice. We've got the movie channel… sports… news… ohhh, mech-on-mech action–" said Slipstream.

"What? No way, let me see that," Nightracer jumped off the sofa and bounded across to the holo-viewer in one corner of the room.

"Got you, ha ha," Slipstream teased, grinning. "You wish."

Nightracer gave her a pout. "Pfft. That is _not_ cool."

"Hmm, speaking of mech-on-mech action…" said Windspeed, as she lay sprawled out across one of the big sofas next to Nickel. Then she giggled, intoxicated by the high-grade. It was making her think naughty thoughts.

Tailwind plopped down next to her. "Well? Don't keep us all in suspense. I can tell you have a plan."

Windspeed sat up, looked at her with the most sincere look she could manage. "Okay. So, think about this: only five of us femmes, to… how many mechs, all up?"

"Five hundred, maybe six?" chimed in Nightracer, as she walked over to join the three femmes on the sofa.

"Uh huh," Windspeed gave the other femmes a sly look. "Do you know what that means, girls?"

"Um. We get to use the sonic showers whenever we want?" Tailwind offered.

Windspeed giggled. "No, silly."

"Oh."

"It means that we can get _any_ mech on campus to do whatever _we_ want…" Windspeed continued.

"Oh!" Nightracer took a swig of her drink with the thought. "Ha! That is sooo true," she said. "Why didn't I think of that?"

" _Any_ mech? Really?" Tailwind looked shocked, as Slipstream joined in on the fun while handing out another round of canisters.

"Uh huh. Really," Windspeed answered.

"Bottom's up, girls!" Nightracer said, and the five of them touched their canisters together, giggling and drinking.

 _Just outside…_

"Hey – do you hear that?" Dirge stopped in front of one of the houses, listening intently, holding back the others with a hand.

"No?" Ramjet said.

"Shhh…" Dirge placed a finger to his lips, beckoning for them to keep quiet. After a moment, the strange sound happened again. " _That._ "

"Ooh!" Thrust said, trying not to whisper but failing dismally. "Yeah! _Femmes_!"

Dirge gave them a knowing smile. "That's right. _Femmes_." He began to walk up to the house.

"Wait – what are you doing?" Ramjet said, fascinated yet afraid at the same time.

"Come _on_!" Dirge urged him on.

Thrust and Ramjet looked at one another with wide optics, and then quietly followed after him, as Misfire, Greasepit, Slugslinger, Triggerhappy and Blowpipe watched them go.

"Wait – what about us? What should we do? Um, Dirge?" Misfire called out.

Dirge glanced back at his house mates, annoyed. "That's 'Most Esteemed Lord and Master Dirge' to you wieners. Stay there and don't move until I call for you."

"Yes, Esteemed Lord Master Dirge, sir," said Misfire, and slowly sat down on the ground, waiting expectantly to be allowed to join the trio of jets.

Triggerhappy sported a stupid grin. "Heh… femmes," he said to himself.

When the door opened, Dirge put on his best, too-cool-for-you, tough-guy half-smile. "Well, hello there," he greeted the femme.

She looked the three jets up and down before giggling. Then she grabbed Dirge and pulled him inside. Thrust and Ramjet followed after them, and the door slammed closed.

Five minutes passed, and then another five. Triggerhappy started to get up.

"Hey, where are you going?" Blowpipe asked.

"I'm just going to take a peek through the window," Triggerhappy informed them, but Misfire grabbed him and pulled him back down again, putting him in his place.

" _No, no, no_!" he said in a harsh whisper. "We belong to Master Dirge, now." He paused in thought. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. "Besides, if he finds out we've disobeyed him he'll never let us get anywhere near the femmes."

Triggerhappy sat back down on the ground and sighed.

 _Campus med bay, the next day:_

"Uhhhh, what the slag happened last night?" Motormaster asked, as a nurse-bot tended to his wounds. He had a huge headache.

"This is all _your_ fault," Dead End told him from the adjacent berth. He couldn't move due to his injuries.

"My fault? How is it _my_ fault? I'm not the one who wanted to go out looking for femmes last night," Motormaster defended.

"We're going to miss Orientation," Spectro whined from across the room. Just like his two Watcher friends, he would be out of action for the next few days due to their humiliating defeat against House Delta.

"Hey, do any of you remember what happened last night?" Viewfinder wondered.

"I think we got our afts kicked," Spyglass said, and then added, "Hey, maybe there'll be femmes at the Orientation games?" He started to feel a little better at the thought.

"But we're going to miss it!" Warrior reminded him bitterly.

"Creepy sparks-of-glitches," Breakdown said, shaking his head at them. He was not happy that he would have to share his house with both the Watchers and the Warriors for the rest of the year.

 _House Prima:_

Misfire felt a hand shaking him awake. "Misfire! Hey, Misfire, wake up!" It was Triggerhappy.

"Hey… what happened?" Then he looked about, and realized that he and the other recruits had spent the entire night outside, in front of the femmes' house. They must have fallen into recharge waiting for Dirge and the other two jets to summon them. "Oh, slag!"

The front door of the house suddenly opened and a femme peered out, looking about. "Hello?"

She watched with curiosity at a group of five recruits high tailing it out of there, as fast as they could go.

A tall, blue and grey jet appeared behind her. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

Windspeed shrugged. "Nah – probably just some lost recruits." Then she giggled as he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back inside, the door slamming closed behind her.


	3. Chapter 3 - Slogger and Lightning Speed

**Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 3 – Slogger and Lightning Speed

 _By the time the recharge cycle ended, many recruits from the other Houses didn't show up for Orientation. I figured that they must have stayed in to recover from their wild night of celebration and… for some, at least, getting their afts kicked._

 _We were joined by two other Houses for the first session that morning: House Zeta and a few from House Alpha. The recruits of House Zeta didn't talk much during the Orientation, but were pleasant enough. They kept to themselves, for the most part. The mechs from House Alpha, on the other hand… well, we'll get to them later. First, let me introduce you to Slogger, one of our instructors. He was, well, I think a little crazy._

 _Δ_ _Thundercracker_

* * *

"All right, listen up, robot worms!"

 _I should also mention that Slogger acted just like he talked – real uptight, and a stickler for protocol. He was also a bruiser, and large, with a bit of weight behind him, too._

"I'm Slogger, but you will all address me as _sir_. Is that clear?" He paced slowly up and back, sizing up each of the cadets. When none of them responded, he put a hand to his audio receptor. "I said, _is that_ _clear_?"

"Yes… sir," came back uncertain replies. One of the jets from House Alpha was unamused, looked almost bored.

Slogger walked up to the jet until his face was right up against his. "You, what's your name and House designation?" he demanded.

"Uh… Dirge."

Slogger frowned at him. " _Dirge_? Wrong! It's Dirge, s _ir_!" Then he produced an energy baton, whacked Dirge on the aft with it. "Stand up straight when I'm talking to you, cadet!"

"Hey, owwww!" Dirge reacted, surprised.

Slogger ignored his displeasure. "I asked you a question, cadet. What is your House designation?"

"Uh, House Alpha, _sir_ ," the blue and grey jet replied, though he was still disgruntled at having been whacked with the stick.

Slogger pointed his baton to his two friends. "From the looks of you robot chickens, I'm guessing that you two are his bunk buddies?"

When Thrust mouthed the words 'bunk buddies?' to his house mates in confusion, he received a whack from the baton. "Owwww!" he said in shock, rubbing his thigh.

Slogger continued questioning the Alpha jet trio, looking at them in mock contempt. "You three were _late_! Where are the rest of your house mates?" he demanded.

Dirge looked at his two friends and then down at the ground, averting his optics. "We don't know, sir."

"'We don't know, sir?' 'We don't know, sir?'" Slogger mimicked, his voice so loud that nearby Orientation groups paused briefly to see what was going on.

"No, sir–" Dirge began, but Slogger had already moved his attention to the other recruits. He paced down the line until he stopped in front of the House Zeta cadets.

"You – pathetic worms – what are your names and what is your House designation?" he demanded, wiggling his baton in the air in front of their faces.

"Scrapper of House Zeta, sir." Not wanting to be hit with the stick, he had learned quickly from House Alpha's mistakes.

"Mix – Mixmaster, sir. House Zeta, sir."

"Bonecrusher of House Zeta, _sir_."

"S… um, Scavenger, sir. House Zeta."

"Hook, sir. Also of House Zeta."

"Long Haul of House Zeta." The baton wiggled threateningly in front of him. "Uh, sir!"

Shrapnel was next. "Shrapnel, sir, House Zeta, Zeta."

Slogger looked at him oddly. "What's the matter with you, cadet? Do you have some sort of speech impediment?"

"Uh, yes, sir, sir," Shrapnel replied, as sincerely as possible.

Slogger seemed to evaluate Shrapnel's sincerity, but then suddenly turned his attention to Thrust, who accidentally allowed a smirk to cross his face. "Something amuses you, worm?"

"No, sir," Thrust replied, tracking the baton with his optics. "Sir, no, sir!"

 _Whack!_

"Owwwww!"

 _I could tell that my friend Skywarp, next to me, was trying really hard not to chuckle, and I was worried. I didn't want him to get whacked by one of Slogger's good ones, so I nudged him really hard. Luckily, Slogger was turned the other way and didn't notice Sky's startled reaction._

Slogger turned away from Thrust satisfied, and returned to Shrapnel. "And these two miserable worms?" he said, pointing his baton at Kickback and Bombshell.

"Kickback, sir. House Zeta."

"Bombshell. House Zeta, sir."

Slogger nodded in satisfaction, and then stepped back from the recruits. "Listen up, and listen good!" he said, now addressing all three Houses as he watched each recruit carefully. "One of the very first things you all need to learn is to _never_ disregard your house mates. Get to know them. Treat them well, and they will look after you. You'll be wise to follow my advice…" He looked at Dirge and his two best friends as he said this, but they averted their gaze in unspoken guilt.

 _Well, so far so good. Next, it was our turn._

"You," he said, pointing his baton at Thundercracker. "Are all these sorry excuses for Decepticons your house mates?" The baton pointed at the other House Delta recruits.

"Uh, yes, sir."

"What is your name, recruit?"

"Thundercracker, sir."

"Thundercracker…" he repeated slowly to himself. "Thunder… cracker…"

"Yes, sir."

"Did I ask you to speak?" he yelled abruptly, startling the seeker.

"No, sir. Sorry, sir."

Then he pushed his face up close to Thundercracker's, obviously looking to intimidate him. "Do you know how many seekers I've seen come and go at this Academy over the years, cadet?"

"Uh, no, sir."

"Plenty. Do you know how many slag suckers I've personally dismissed from the Academy because they thought that lighting up the unburnt fuel from their tail pipes would impress their friends?" Snorting and repressed laughter came from the other recruits, but Slogger ignored them.

"No, sir," Thundercracker responded, trying hard not to break his solemnity, though it was proving to be quite a challenge.

"Plenty." Slogger stepped back, and then moved across to Skywarp. "What's your name?"

"Skywarp, sir."

"Why are you here?"

"To, uh… learn to be a better Decepticon, sir."

Slogger's face was expressionless. He lingered a few moments before moving on to Starscream. "You."

"Starscream, sir," Starscream responded.

"Why are you here?"

"To graduate top of the class… and go on to lead the Decepticon army one day, sir."

More snorting and snickering suddenly erupted, this time from the trio of jets of House Alpha, and Slogger strode quickly across to confront them, his large frame naturally intimidating. "Do you think this is funny? _Do you see me laughing_?!"

Dirge stiffened, and Thrust's complexion visibly paled. "No, sir!" Dirge and Ramjet replied hastily in unison.

Slogger glared at the three of them accusingly. "Be aware that this is _not_ the place to go chasing femmes while getting over-energized, as you did last night. You three ought to be ashamed." This time, sniggers erupted from all the members of the other Houses, and Dirge averted his optics to stare at the ground, trying to hide his embarrassment, though he was quietly surprised and also angered that someone had obviously tattled on him. Slogger continued speaking. "You are all here for one thing and one thing only – to learn to become better Decepticons," he said to the trio, borrowing from Skywarp's reply. "You will all do well to remember that."

 _Slogger was just one of many instructors that we'd have the pleasure of getting to know during our time at the Academy. Sure, he was tough, and mean at times, but he was a decorated war veteran, and really knew his stuff. Plus, there weren't many cadets who could cross him and get away with it._

Slogger walked back to stand in front of Starscream. "All you fly boy types think that you're so much better than everybody else. Well, let me tell you something. You're not. And if _any_ of you think that you are, well you can just go home _right now_. Is that clear!?"

"Yes, sir," Starscream replied.

Slogger gave him a critical look before then moving on to the triple changers. "Same thing applies to you pieces of slag." The baton danced threateningly in front of Astrotrain and Blitzwing's faces. "I don't care how many different alternate modes you have… it doesn't make you any more special than the rest of us. From now on, I am going to personally make sure that you all _earn_ your places at this Academy. Is that clear?!"

"Yes, sir," the two triple changers replied in unison. But Octane, standing next to them, couldn't keep a straight face.

"You, step forward."

"Who, me?"

"Does it look like I'm talking to that block wall over there?! _Yes, you_!" he yelled at the top of his vocal processor, sounding very angry and intimidating.

Octane cautiously took a step forward.

 _Whack!_

"Owwwww!"

"Anybody else want to dance with my stick?" There was not a single peep from any of the other recruits, so Slogger turned to the remaining members of House Delta. "You… what's your name?"

"Brawl, sir."

"Brawl, eh. You think you're tough, don't you?"

"No, sir."

A tense pause as Slogger sized him up, before moving on. "What about you?" he said, pointing his baton at Onslaught.

"Onslaught, sir, and no, sir."

Then he waved the baton at Swindle, who answered without having to be asked. "Swindle, sir, and no, sir."

"Vortex, sir."

"Blast off, sir."

Slogger seemed satisfied with their responses, and moved on to the last recruits. "What about you lot – you don't look like any Decepticons I've ever seen. What are your names?"

"Soundwave, sir. Ravage and Laserbeak," he replied, speaking for his cassetticons. "Rumble, and Frenzy."

Slogger then stepped back to look at all the cadets, and gave them some final words of advice. "Congratulations, you have all been accepted into the War Academy, and that is certainly an accomplishment in itself. But it is only the beginning of your journey. Now, it is up to each of you to listen, learn, and hone your skills, and only then will you be assured your place in the Decepticon ranks. We do not tolerate weaklings around here, and only the very best will make it through to graduation. If you fail to give your all, and do not apply yourself to the best of your capabilities, _no one_ will be sorry to see you go." Then he showed them how to perform a proper military salute, before finally dismissing them all.

 _The next part of our Orientation wasn't as tough. We got to see the inside of the aero dome for the first time – something that I'd been personally looking forward to. So while my house mates and I waited to meet our flight instructor, a Decepticon flying ace by the name of Lightning Speed, we all took a seat in the spectator's lounge, where we could see right into the aero dome and connecting tunnel through a reinforced window. We were soon joined by all the members of House Alpha._

House Delta sat together in the lounge area, watching as House Alpha took their seats in the row directly opposite them. As they did so, the general banter and laughter died down until there was only silence. The trio of House Alpha jets were accompanied by five other recruits who had been notably absent during Slogger's introductory session. Thrust and Ramjet looked uncomfortable, while Dirge had his arms crossed. He looked as though he had a permanent scowl etched on his face. Something was clearly bothering him.

Skywarp decided to break the awkward silence. "Hey, do you guys think what Slogger said was true? You know, about lighting up unburnt fuel from our tail pipes?" His comment elicited a few chuckles from his house mates, though no one had any clear answers.

"Dunno. Never tried it," Thundercracker said, casually, and then added after a pause, "I've never even thought about it, to be honest."

After another few moments of awkward silence, Astrotrain decided to challenge the mood a little bit. "Soooo," he started, looking across nonchalantly at the members of House Alpha. "Thrust, right?" The red and grey jet ignored him, so he continued. "That torture stick must have really hurt, huh?"

More chuckles from House Delta.

"It hurt like hell," Octane offered. But still no response from the Alpha jets, so Octane decided to push the envelope further still. "How were the femmes last night?"

That got a desired reaction.

The five unfamiliar recruits of House Alpha suddenly looked at Octane as if he'd just discovered their darkest, dirtiest secret. "He wouldn't even tell _us_ what happened–" started Triggerhappy, but was soon shut down by Dirge.

"Shut the _slag_ up!" Dirge said to him, then looked across at all of House Delta. "And just so you all know, _nothing_ happened."

Deadly silence once more, and then, "That's not what I hear," Starscream said, stirring the pot and eliciting more sniggers from his house mates. Dirge gave him a look that could have terminated a row of petro-rabbits in one fell swoop.

 _That was the first time we met Dirge and his two best buddies, as well as the other House Alpha recruits, who seemed a little afraid of the jet trio for some reason. Little did we know it then, but it marked the beginning of a very long, and very eventful, rivalry between our two Houses._

The friendly conversation was cut short when Lightning Speed approached the seated mechs. "You're the new recruits, right?" He studied them each in turn, a data pad in hand. "All right, I assume you've all got flight dedicated alt modes?" Swindle and Onslaught shook their heads, while Greasepit, Brawl, Soundwave and the cassetticons, except for Laserbeak, looked back at him with blank expressions. "No? Oh, no problem. You can assist the flyers. Okay, are we ready? Let's go," he said, and led the way out of the lounge and into the aero dome.

It was a huge structure, designed to comfortably contain several jets inside its sealed dome, with plenty of room to manoeuvre. Its precisely controlled atmosphere allowed cadets to practice their skills in a wide variety of simulated environments, from hurricane winds to ice storms and meteor showers.

Lightning Speed continued talking as he walked. "This is the aero dome. Many of you will be spending a lot of time here in the months to come. This is where your aerial abilities will be tested, and challenged. There are two basic skills that any of you flyers will need to have, if you want to graduate with honours: speed, and accuracy. I'll demonstrate."

Lightning Speed transformed into his jet mode, and shot upwards until he reached the ceiling of the dome. Then he circled around several times, his speed steadily increasing, before he entered the large, circular tunnel. The cadets watched in awe as he executed several complex mid-air manoeuvres, skilfully avoiding laser fire from several hovering holo-drones without crashing into the transparent walls of the narrow tunnel. He fired back with his own simulated laser weapons until every drone had been knocked out of the air, before finally returning to the group, transforming back into robot mode.

"I expect all of you to be able to do that, and more," he said.

 _I'd never seen anyone move through the air with as much skill and mastery as he, and from that moment on I decided that I wanted to be just as good as Lightning Speed – if not better._

On their way to their next session, the cadets from the two Houses stopped for a brief moment as five femmes walked past them on their way into the aero dome. When they saw Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust, they broke into a fit of giggles. "Hi, boys!" they said, waving, before moving on.

Triggerhappy, Misfire and Greasepit watched the femmes, turning their heads as they walked past as if spellbound, mesmerized by them.

"Soooo… nothing happened, huh?" Octane teased Dirge, grinning.

"Just slag off," Dirge replied.

 _Campus med bay:_

"If I don't get out of here soon, I think I'm going to explode," said one of the Warriors, miserable on his med berth.

"That wouldn't be such a bad thing," Motormaster muttered.

"Hey, Motor?" Wildrider ventured.

"What?"

"Could you pass me the bottle of lubricant? I can't reach it."

Motormaster remained motionless, pretending that he hadn't heard the request.

"It's – it's right next to you."

After a moment, Motormaster reluctantly passed Wildrider the lubricant bottle.

"Ahhhhh." Sounds of lubricant application filled the otherwise quiet med bay for several long minutes, as the other berth-ridden house mates kept their heads purposefully turned away. "Thanks."


	4. Chapter 4 - Star Seeker

**Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 4 – Star Seeker

 _It was the second day of Orientation, and our House was up early and ready to go. The morning session consisted of the preliminary tryouts for the Academy's official football team, where our general aptitude for the sport was tested through a round of games. Our House – House Delta – was pitted against the recruits of House Alpha, and it was… quite a colorful tryout, to say the least._

 _Δ_ _Starscream_

* * *

"He cheated!" Dirge yelled, as he pushed his way through the other cadets.

"I did not!" the accused defended.

"You did, too, aft face!" Dirge strode up to Starscream in a menacing manner, pointed an accusatory finger at him.

"Watch who you're calling aft face, cone head!"

"You call me cone head one more time and I'll–"

"You'll what?"

"I'll stick my finger so far up your aft port you won't be able to walk for a week!" Dirge threatened, scowling.

But Starscream, determined not to be bullied by some self-righteous jerk, stood his ground. "Oh, really? Well, I dare you to, _cone head_!"

That was the last straw. "All right, you asked for it." That's when Dirge pushed Starscream violently backwards, and the Delta seeker landed on the ground, hard.

 _Like I said, it was a colorful tryout session. Still to this day, I have no idea what his problem was, but one thing I am absolutely sure about is that I never cheated._

Starscream quickly scrambled to get back up, and then rushed forwards straight into Dirge, tackling him to the ground. In the ensuing brawl that quickly broke out, several recruits came to both their aid, some joining in the fight, whilst others trying to break the two of them up. It was a noisy, rowdy fray that threatened to turn into an all-out riot as the two recruits each fought to gain the upper hand over the other. In the end, the football coach, who was twice the size of both cadets put together, managed to put an end to the squabble.

"Alright, break it up!"

 _That's our coach, who we affectionately nicknamed Bruiser. He rarely got mad; on the contrary, he was normally quite even-tempered. But on this particular occasion, he was pretty mad. I don't blame him, either – we_ did _interrupt his tryout session, after all._

"I said, that's _enough_!" Bruiser pushed past the crowd and forced Starscream to his feet, then went to grab Dirge, dragging him up by the arm. "Time out!" he yelled at the two recruits. "I want to see both of you in my office, right now!" he demanded, pointing towards the rear of the large stadium, and then looked around at the gathered crowd. "The rest of you, take a short break. I'll be right back."

 _As soon as we got to his office, Bruiser had us both sit down quietly for a whole breem, as he checked his messages and took a few com calls, until he was finally ready to lecture us about our disgraceful behavior on the field._

"You," he began, pointing at Starscream with a light pen. "You're Starscream, right? Of House Delta?"

"Yes, sir."

"What in the Pits was that all about back there?"

"Why don't you ask this crank sucker sitting right over here–" Starscream replied snidely, glancing over at Dirge, who returned a hateful look at the seeker.

"Because I'm asking you, not him," Bruiser corrected him patiently.

"Well, apparently, the ball mysteriously decided to jump through our goal posts all by itself," Starscream stated, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"Uh, huh." The coach was not amused. "What about you," he said to Dirge. "What's your excuse?"

The blue and grey jet pointed a finger at Starscream. "He cheated. The ball was out of bounds."

"I did not, you lying piece of scrap!" Starscream shot back, ready to defend himself all over again.

Bruiser cut in before Dirge had a chance to rebut. "All right, cool it." He paused in thought, and then leaned back in his chair, his hands joined to form a steeple. "Now, listen carefully, the both of you. You're both excellent players, and I want you _both_ on the team. You're fast, and you're keen – the best I've seen in a long time." There was silence as the two cadets took in the news in quiet surprise. "But the thing is, I can't let you play if you're going to behave like you did out there just because someone's called you a cheat," he said to Starscream in particular, before looking at Dirge, "or a cone head."

Starscream sat staring at a spot on the wall, whilst Dirge looked down at the floor. Bruiser continued. "There's no way on Cybertron that I'll allow this Academy to be represented by two players who can't keep their slag together, no matter how good they are. Now, I'm going to give you two one more chance, so _don't_ blow it." He paused again, looked at each of them in turn. "Tell me, how badly would you both like to make it through to the Championship round at the Alpha Cup Football Tournament at the end of the year? Starscream?"

Starscream cleared his vocal processor, sat up straighter in his seat. "I would like to do that very much, sir."

"Good. What about you, Dirge?"

"Would love to. Sir."

"Great!" Bruiser said, nodding in satisfaction. "Then why don't you two get back out there, and show us what you got!" he said, pointing towards the stadium, and then watched as the two cadets got up and made their way back outside.

 _And that's how I got a place with the Star Seekers, the name of the Academy's football team. And, coincidentally… yes, you would be correct in thinking that this is where the term "seeker" originated from – the same term that came to be used to refer to us Decepticon flyers, in particular those of us built primarily for speed._

Before the next session was due to start, the members of House Delta gathered in the general rec room to discuss the morning tryouts.

"Congratulations, Starscream," Thundercracker said, raising a container of energon in salute.

"Yeah, we knew you'd get picked," added Skywarp.

"Well, there're plenty of spots still open. Hopefully you two will get picked as well," Starscream said encouragingly.

As they talked, they noticed five cadets seated quietly at another table across from them, so Astrotrain decided to befriend them. "You five were at the tryouts this morning, right?" he asked them in a casual manner.

"Oh, yeah, but we didn't make the cut," answered Misfire. Just like his house mates, he was staring into his canister of energon, looking downright miserable.

"Hey, I feel for you. Don't worry about it," Astrotrain replied, trying to sound half way cheerful. "I'm sure there're plenty of other things you're all good at." By now, the rest of House Delta had stopped to listen in on the conversation, curious.

One of the others, Slugslinger, spoke up in response, shaking his head sombrely. "There's nothing we're good at, _nothing_." Then he took a swig of his drink, slammed it back down on the table in emphasis.

"Yeah, we suck ball bearings," Blowpipe added.

Thundercracker looked to his friend Skywarp, silently mouthing the word 'O-kay?'

Astrotrain scratched his forehead, ready to walk away from the conversation and leave the five cadets alone in their misery. But then he decided to give them one more shot. "Say, what House you guys from again?"

"Alpha," Misfire reminded him flatly.

Astrotrain snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, that's right. I remember now. You five were at the aero dome yesterday."

"Yeah. We even suck at flying, can you imagine that?" the one called Triggerhappy said.

Astrotrain, tired of hearing how much they sucked, wanted to kick their afts all the way to the next star system for their self-pity. "Hey, everybody's good at _something_ , even if it's sitting around acting like miserable jerks!" That seemed to shake them up a little bit, and they each began to sit up straighter in their seats, their attention now fully on the triple changer. "That's right, and don't you forget it," he finished, putting on the mock anger.

"Maybe all they're good for is sucking up Dirge's aft port?" Starscream said in a low voice, as Thundercracker nudged him with his elbow.

Slugslinger, who had overheard, spoke up. "No, actually, he's right." He turned to his fellow house mates soberly. "We _do_ kiss his tailpipe. I mean, come on, why the hell do we let him treat us like we're dirt underneath his exhaust outlet? We're _pathetic_!" Then he looked at Starscream. "Not like you – you were just awesome today."

"I – I was?" Starscream shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Well, sure. We saw the way you kicked his tail pipe earlier this morning. He really had it coming."

Misfire leaned across to Slugslinger, whispered in one of his audio sensors. "Hey, I'm not sure it's such a good idea to be talking about Master Dirge behind his back like that."

Slugslinger looked at him in frustration. "Master Dirge… See, that's exactly what I'm talking about – we're _pathetic_!" Then he stood up and stormed off in anger.

"So, what's up _his_ tail pipe?" Thundercracker asked nonchalantly, ignoring the awkwardness of the situation.

Triggerhappy responded after a beat. "Eh, don't worry about him, he'll get over it. He's just angry we're not allowed to talk to the femmes."

This time it was Skywarp's turn to silently mouth the word, 'O-kay?'

 _Fortunately for me and my fellow house mates, House Alpha – which included the esteemed Master Dirge himself – was not scheduled to attend the same afternoon session as ours that day. Instead, we were given the opportunity to get better acquainted with the members of House Zeta._

 _Our instructor for this session introduced himself to us as The Nameless One, though we all knew that he did have a real name. We Decepticons intrinsically know what our names are the moment we first come online. So, no one actually believed him. But then, he was already a rather strange character to begin with._

"So, don't you have a real name, Nameless One?" Starscream ventured, saying what was on everyone's mind.

"I don't have a name," he answered.

"Right," Scrapper, of House Zeta, said. "So, does that mean you were never created then?"

The Nameless One shook his head. "Nope. You see, as a solid, physical construct, I don't really exist."

Thundercracker thought he was amusing. "You don't really exist?"

"That's right," he replied. "I don't really exist, and neither do you."

 _Oh, did I mention that this session was our introduction to sacred teachings and ancient wisdom? No? Oh, well, no matter. None of us actually got "it" straight away, so you'd be in good company if you haven't quite "got it", either._

"O-kay?" Skywarp said out loud, which earned him an eruption of sniggers from the members of both Houses, as he tried to work out what The Nameless One was telling them. "But, you're sitting right there in front of me."

"Wait, wait… if _I_ don't exist, and you don't exist, and _he_ doesn't exist," reasoned Mixmaster, as he pointed at everybody in the room who didn't really exist. "Then, what the slag am I even doing here?"

"Yeah, this is freaking me out," added his friend Bonecrusher. "I don't want to not exist."

"You can say that one more time," Onslaught replied.

The Nameless One simply looked back at them all with what seemed to be eternal patience. "I want you all to be able to complete this sentence: 'I don't really exist as a solid, physical construct because…'" He paused, as several of his students returned confused stares. "I'm going to give you all until next week to really think about your answer." Then he smiled. "Oh, and I also want each of you to start reading through the data tracks in the first volume of the data book _Cybertronian History – The Birth of a New Species_ , which you can find copies of in the study hall. That will be all."

 _Once our optic-opening session had ended, we invited House Zeta over to our House later that evening, to discuss the topic of our non-existence, as well as other interesting things, made all the more interesting after a little high-grade._

"Well, we all made it through Day Two okay. Here's to us!" Skywarp said, raising his canister in salute.

The others all returned his gesture in kind. "To us!"

"I don't know about any of you, but I'm still just trying to exist again," Rumble said, taking a gulp of liquid refreshment.

"Heh. You know, I wonder what those Alpha cadets meant when they said they weren't allowed to talk to femmes," Thundercracker mused.

"No idea," Rumble answered, shrugging. "They looked like a bunch of whackos, anyway."

"What femmes?" Long Haul asked.

"I'm guessing it's those same femmes we saw outside the aero dome yesterday," Thundercracker reasoned.

"And why the frag do they call him Master Dirge?" Frenzy added.

"I'm almost afraid to find out what's going on with House Alpha," Starscream commented.

"Yeah, especially behind closed doors," Skywarp added, eliciting a round of laughs.

"I say one of us should just go straight up to them and ask," Astrotrain suggested. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Are you volunteering?" Blitzwing said.

"Well, you may want to make sure you have campus security with you if you do," Octane said, eliciting a second round of laughs.

 _Campus med bay:_

"Hey, anyone got a good movie to watch? I'm bored," said Viewfinder, depressed that he, like his fellow house mates, had missed out on this morning's preliminary football tryouts.

"Why don't you shut the frag up?" Motormaster muttered, then shouted, "Nurse-bot!"

"Oh, how about _Femme-bots Gone Wild_?" Spectro said to his trine partner. "We haven't seen that in a while."

"Like only three days ago," Dead End said mockingly.

"Hey, how many times have you seen that flick, anyway?" one of the Warriors ventured to ask the trio of Watchers.

"Probably more times than they can count," answered Dead End sotto voce.

"Nurse-bot!" Motormaster called out again, getting more impatient as he watched the nurse-bot tend to a cadet who had just come in for a pulled rotator. "Hey, nurse-bot!"

"Well, I sure wouldn't mind seeing it one more time," Spyglass said, looking more eager than he should have.

Motormaster couldn't help but admonish the Omni Watchers. "Hey, what the hell's the matter with you three? You all act like you've just been sparked. I mean, seriously, _Femme-bots Gone Wild_? Mature the frag up a little." Then he looked at the Warriors. "And you lot. How the frag do you expect anyone to take you seriously when no one can tell any of you apart?"

No one spoke for a good minute after that, until the nurse-bot finally arrived beside Motormaster's berth.

"How are you feeling, sir?" the nurse-bot said.

"How am I feeling? Well, that depends on how quickly I can get the frag out of here," Motormaster answered.

Nurse-bot checked his readouts, and then looked back at him tentatively. "I'm afraid, sir, that you will be required to remain in the med bay for at least the next few days."

"What? You can't be serious? But I feel fine," the Omni cadet responded in frustration.

"I'm sorry, sir. Campus policy," the nurse-bot informed him, before moving on to the next berth to check Wildrider's readout.

Motormaster grumbled his frustrations, watching his house mates as they lay on their berths, bored out of their cranial circuits. "Fine, put it on," he said resignedly.

Viewfinder looked at him, his expression all of a sudden lit up in joy. "Really, you mean it?"

"Just play the damned movie before I change my mind."

The three Watchers and the four Warriors high-fived one another as they all shouted together, "Yesss!"

 _Later that night…_

Making sure he was alone, Dirge approached House Prima and pressed the buzzer on the front door. There was no response; the hour was very late, and most mechs on campus were in recharge. Dirge tried again.

Eventually, after several minutes, Windspeed opened the door and was surprised to find the Alpha cadet standing there by himself, looking nervous. "Oh, it's you," she said, and then gave him a once over. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Dirge rubbed the side of his face, his optics dim from lack of recharge. "Uh, yeah. Listen," he began, glancing furtively behind him. "I was just wondering…"

"Yes?" she asked expectantly.

"If, uh, ahem," he continued, and then changed his mind. "Look, can I come in?"

She bit her bottom lip uncertainly. "You know, I don't think that's such a good idea. You should get some recharge," she said, and went to close the door on him, but he hurriedly held it open with one hand.

"No, wait. Listen…" he said, and then looked down at the ground.

A feminine voice from inside the house could be heard calling out. "Windspeed? Is everything all right?"

The red and grey femme shouted back over her shoulder. "Everything's just fine! Dirgey was just leaving," she said, turning back to the jet.

Dirge gave her a stubborn look, and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "Just give me the damned video recording, and I promise I'll leave you alone," he said, and then added, " _Please_?"

Windspeed stared at him blankly for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then she giggled hysterically before slamming the door in his face.


	5. Chapter 5 - Endless Love

**Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 5 – Endless Love

 _The third day of Orientation was kind of an important day for all us Decepticon cadets because it was the day that we started to truly think about what it was that made each of us unique._ _That is to say, every great Decepticon is created with a special ability that defines not only who they are, but also what they can do and what they can achieve._

 _See, we don't get a user manual when we're created, telling us exactly how each of us functions. It doesn't work like that. Instead, it's a process of self discovery._ _Now, some of us already had a pretty good idea of what our special ability was_ _. Take Soundwave, for example; from the moment he came online, he knew that he possessed a great ability to detect the faintest of signals, even read other mech's thoughts – for him, there was never any question of his gift._

 _Actually, being able to demonstrate a strong ability was something that was highly prized – and even envied – by lesser mechs, but it especially guaranteed a Decepticon entry into the War Academy._

 _Δ_ _Rumble_

* * *

"All right, listen up, robot chickens! If you learn absolutely nothing else this year but what the slag it is that you're good at, I might not have to use _this_."

Groans and murmurings echoed around the large amphitheatre where all the Houses were assembled for the morning session, as Slogger waved his baton around in the air, pausing dramatically.

"Now, who here already knows what their special talent is?" No responses. He pointed his baton at a random cadet – who happened to be Blowpipe. "What about you – do you know what your gift is?"

"Uh, no, sir."

Slogger looked at Kickback. "You – do you know?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, sir."

Then he pointed his baton at Thrust. "Come on – surely _you'd_ know what it is that you're good at?" he challenged the cadet.

The blue and red jet gave him a petro-deer in the headlights look. "Uh," he said, and slowly shook his head.

The sound of femmes behind Thrust whispering to one another and giggling got Slogger's attention. "Something funny?"

Slipstream cleared her vocal processor. "Um, no, sir," she replied, though it was immediately followed by more giggling.

"Nothing's funny, huh? Well, why don't you stand up and share it with the rest of us, anyway?" Slogger insisted, waving his baton up and down to indicate for her to stand up. "I'm sure we'd all love to hear it."

All optics were now on the femmes as the amphitheatre fell quiet. Slipstream stood up. "Well, sir, we know what Thrust's special gift is…" she began to explain. More giggling arose from the other femmes.

Thrust turned around to face them. "Hey!"

Slogger ignored his embarrassment. "And what might that be?"

Slipstream answered cheerfully. "He can sing _Endless Love_ while balancing a canister filled with energon on one knee." Laughter erupted from around the amphitheatre.

"Yeah, and that's _nothing_ compared to what Ramjet and Dirge can do!" Nightracer piped up, eliciting more laughter.

Dirge, seated beside Thrust, covered his optics with his hand and sank lower in his seat, as the sound of giggling invaded his audio receptors. Ramjet attempted to ignore it all.

Slogger shook his head at the cadets as he waited for the noise to die down. He did not look impressed. The baton hovered near Soundwave. "You, you're Soundwave, right? What's your special talent?" he asked.

"Heightened auditory and signal perception and control, sir," Soundwave answered plainly.

Slogger thought for a moment. "That's very interesting." Then he addressed the rest of his audience. "Soundwave here is a perfect example of a mech who has a name that clearly indicates his unique ability. So, if you still don't know what you're good at, as you already should, your own name might provide a clue." Then he turned back to Soundwave. "You have a very special gift. Don't misuse it."

Then he settled his sights upon the members of House Prima once more. "Do any of you know your special gifts?" he asked the femmes.

Slipstream replied, a mischievous smile on her face. "Yes; I do, sir."

"What's your name?" Slogger asked her.

"Slipstream, sir."

Slogger looked at her expectantly. "You want to tell the rest of us what you can do?"

"Sure. I'm the fastest in the air, but I'm also the sneakiest, too," she proclaimed. "By the time you've realized I'm coming up behind you, I'll already be way ahead of you."

Again, Slogger did not seem impressed, though he decided to investigate her claim. "You think so, do you?"

"Yes, I do, sir." Slipstream smiled confidently.

"Uh huh." He nodded in acknowledgement, and then turned to address his wider audience. "Would anybody here like to challenge Slipstream's claim that she is not only the fastest, but also the sneakiest, out of all you flyers here?" Silence and murmurs from the rest of the cadets, but there were no challengers. "Anybody? Come on, don't be shy. Stand up if you think you have what it takes to beat her," he prompted again.

This time, a handful of cadets slowly began to stand. Starscream was the first among them to do so, followed by Dirge, then Thundercracker, Ramjet, Thrust, and then finally Skywarp. Slogger nodded in satisfaction and smiled. "That's more like it. Now, I want you seven to meet at the aero dome this afternoon. Time to get serious." He looked at Slipstream. "Think you can beat them?" he asked, indicating towards her challengers with a nod of his head.

She gave them all a sly smile. "Well, it sure wouldn't hurt to try, would it?" She looked at her challengers. "Can't wait to see what you've got, boys."

"What are you three good at?" Slogger continued, asking the three seekers of House Delta. "Thundercracker?"

Thundercracker shrugged. "I'm pretty fast, sir."

"And he's good at stirring up a s***storm," Skywarp suggested, grinning.

"Heh," Thundercracker said. "You know, I thought that was your specialty."

"Is that true, Skywarp?" Slogger continued. "You like stirring things up?"

"No, sir," Skywarp answered.

"So what can you do better than everybody else?" Skywarp did not have an answer for him; he did not know. Slogger studied him for a moment, narrowing his optics. "I want you to find out exactly what it is that Primus sent you here to do." He looked at Thundercracker and Starscream. "Same goes for you two."

Then he stepped back to address the rest of the cadets. "Alright, listen up! There'll be an official welcoming party in the assembly hall this weekend for all new cadets and instructors. I expect you all to be there, and to be on your best behaviour at all times. That means no over-energizing and no picking fights, _regardless_ of how much you may want to."

 _After the morning session, Slipstream's challenge was the highlight of conversation amongst the cadets gathered in the rec room. No one would shut the slag up about it. Oh, yeah, but it's also how we first met the femmes of House Prima._

"I hate to burst your bubble, Slipstream, but _I'm_ the fastest here – not you."

 _Yep, that was the first thing Starscream said to Slipstream as he introduced us to them. Come to think of it, that was Starscream actually being nice about it. Can't say the femmes appreciated his lack of subtlety, though. Coincidentally, the Alpha cone heads were sitting at a table nearby, quietly listening in on the conversation._

The femmes exchanged some private comments in low whispers, before they finally turned to face the Delta cadets. "I'm sorry, we didn't catch your names," one of them said, before introducing herself and her team mates. "I'm Windspeed, and this is Nightracer, Nickel, Tailwind and, of course you already know Slipstream."

"I'm Starscream, this is Thundercracker, Skywarp, Soundwave, Rumble, Octane, and Blitzwing," the seeker replied, and then looked around for the other Delta members. "The rest of us are around here somewhere."

"Well, it's nice to meet you all," Tailwind said, smiling.

"I hate to burst _your_ bubble, Starscream, but what if you're wrong?" Slipstream came back at him.

"I'm not wrong, but I guess we'll know for sure this afternoon, won't we?" he returned, arms crossed.

"Mmmhmm, can't wait," she said, giving him a crafty smile.

There was a silent pause as each cadet sized up the members of the other House. Then, "Hey, you five wanna come over to our house later to celebrate our victory?" Rumble asked the femmes.

"Your _victory_?" Slipstream repeated incredulously.

"Yeah," Rumble answered, "Starscream's going to beat you, hands down."

Slipstream shook her head thoughtfully, and then glanced over at her opponent. "Okay. Well, since you're so certain, why don't we wager on that?"

"Yeah, sure," Thundercracker shrugged, as Octane nodded affirmatively. "What are we wagering?"

The femmes spoke among themselves before Windspeed replied, "How about… if Slipstream wins, we each get to spend time with one of you at the welcoming party this weekend," she offered, speaking loudly enough for House Alpha to hear.

"And if Starscream wins?" asked Thundercracker.

Windspeed shrugged, but then Starscream answered before she could speak. "If I win, I get to pick who each of _you_ are to ask to the party," he said, " _and_ not only that, but if they accept your invitation, then you must promise to remain by their side for the entire evening."

There were gasps and murmurs as the femmes debated among themselves. Then Windspeed finally answered. "Alright, then. You have a deal."

As Windspeed got up to leave with her friends, Dirge glared at her from where he was seated at his table, but she simply winked and waved him a small goodbye. "See you all later!" she said.

 _That afternoon, almost the entire Academy was gathered at the aero dome to watch the contest. Word had spread fast, apparently. Of course, it probably had nothing to do with the fact that one of the competitors happened to be a femme._

"Alright, robot turkeys, are you ready to fly?" Slogger called out to the challengers from inside the packed spectator's lounge of the aero dome.

"Yes, sir!" they said in unison.

"Good. Now, it's really simple. See that tunnel up there?" They all nodded. "The first one to circle it seven times and then return to his – or her – starting position, wins the challenge. Okay, any questions?"

"No, sir," they said in unison.

"Good. On my mark… get ready… _go_!"

The seven contenders all jumped up into the air and transformed into their jet modes, before taking off for the circular tunnel. Starscream was the quickest to react, and easily took the lead for the first lap, but was then challenged by Dirge as the two of them went head-to-head during the second lap, with Thundercracker coming up right behind them. In third place was Skywarp, and then Slipstream, with Ramjet and Thrust trailing behind.

The crowd cheered and shouted, as the jets began the third lap of the tunnel. Then, in an unexpected manoeuvre, Dirge swerved into Starscream, causing the seeker to hit the wall of the tunnel and fall behind into second place.

"Hey!" Starscream called out in irritation, before spurting forward with a boost of power in order to catch up to the Alpha jet. Slipstream was close behind Thundercracker, but then passed him as she quickly moved into line behind Starscream, following his exact movements as she carefully trailed behind him. He attempted to shake her off, but she seemed to stick to him like glue.

By the time they entered into the fourth lap around the tunnel, Starscream was only half a body length behind Dirge. This time, however, he was prepared for Dirge's dirty tactics and managed to avoid contact with him as the Alpha jet attempted to knock him off course again.

To Starscream's surprise, Slipstream was beginning to match his speed, as she slipped out from behind him and took up position behind Dirge, now using the slipstream he was creating to her advantage.

Thundercracker was fast approaching the three jets in the lead, with Skywarp close behind him, but then Ramjet rammed into the black and purple seeker, successfully throwing him off course, and it looked like Skywarp was out of the race.

Thrust was hot on Thundercracker's tail, intent on pulling the same trick that Ramjet had just done to Skywarp, and it was beginning to look as though there was a co-ordinated effort by the Alpha trio to take out the Delta jets.

By the fifth lap, the competition became fiercer. Thundercracker had successfully caused Thrust to veer off course and hit the tunnel wall, effectively eliminating him from the race while securing second place with Dirge. Meanwhile, Starscream was back in the lead, and Slipstream had fallen behind, after Dirge had swerved to throw her off his tail.

At the start of the sixth lap, Slipstream had managed to shoot past both Ramjet and Dirge, and was approaching the lead once more, this time head-to-head with Thundercracker. For a few moments, it looked as though she was going to surpass him, but then the blue and grey seeker caused her engines to shudder as he blasted past her with a resounding boom, causing her speed to drop significantly as she momentarily lost her bearing. It was enough to put her out of the race.

With Slipstream eliminated and the two cone heads trailing a good distance behind, the seventh and final lap was essentially a race between Starscream and Thundercracker. While the two were very closely matched in terms of speed and skill, Starscream managed to maintain his position until the end of the race, winning the contest.

 _Later that evening with the femmes, we all got to talking, and drinking, and then some more talking…_

To help celebrate Starscream's victory in the speed challenge, and to break the ice a little, the cadets of House Delta and House Prima decided to start their evening off with a drinking contest, each taking turns downing a full canister of high-grade. One by one, each mech or femme was eliminated from the game as they opted out to avoid over-energizing and crashing, until only Starscream and Slipstream remained.

" _Go, go, go, go, go_!" The house mates all chanted, encouraging the two remaining contestants; the Deltas backing Starscream, the femmes backing Slipstream. Both picked up their freshly filled canisters and downed the contents, then slammed the empty cans down on the table. Laughter and shouts of encouragement from their house mates followed.

Both of them had proven to be strong-willed, both keeping down their high-grade, but it was Starscream who finally refused to go another round. He fell backwards into the sofa, holding up a hand against another offer of a refill from Astrotrain. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to miss out on tomorrow's sessions. You win, this time," he conceded to Slipstream.

The femmes celebrated their small win, high-fiving one another and clapping their friend on the back.

"It's…" Slipstream started, but then held on to Nickel for support as she placed a hand to her forehead. "Oh, I think that high-grade's starting to get to my head." She looked at Starscream. "Well, I guess you were right about being the fastest among us. Congratulations," she said to him, and then looked at the blue and grey seeker. "Though, if it wasn't for that weird thing you did, Thundercracker, I might have actually had a chance. What was that, anyway?"

Thundercracker shrugged. "I don't know. It just… kind of happened."

"Think you can do it again?" Rumble asked him.

"I'm not sure," Thundercracker replied, but had no further answer. He shifted his attention back to the femmes. "So, what's it like being, you know, different? I mean, you're only a few femmes among many mechs here at the Academy."

Tailwind shrugged. "It's okay, I guess."

"Well, you really want to know the truth? Most mechs around here seem to lose their marbles just by simply being _around_ us," Nightracer told them. "Present company excepted, of course," she said, smiling.

"That must be a real pain in the rotator," Starscream commented.

"Oh, you don't know the half of it," clarified Tailwind. "Take the mechs of House Alpha, for example." Her friends giggled at the mention of that particular House.

"Oh, what's up with those guys, anyway?" Astrotrain asked.

Tailwind shrugged, exchanged knowing smiles with her friends. "Well, let's just say they're really eager to please."

"Hey, is it true what she said about Thrust?" Rumble asked, indicating Slipstream.

"What _did_ she say about Thrust?" Windspeed asked deliberately, already knowing the answer but wanting Rumble to repeat it out loud, anyway.

"You know, about him being able to sing _Endless Love_ on one knee while balancing a full can of energon… or something?" Rumble explained. More giggles.

"Yep, it's true," Nightracer offered. "You should have seen all three of them. They would have done _anything_ we'd have asked them to," she said, referring to the Alpha trio. "They're such losers. Have you seen the way they treat their house mates?" She received nods of acknowledgement all round.

Then Thundercracker asked Starscream, indicating the femmes, "So, have you decided which mechs they're going to be asking to the welcoming party this weekend?"

"As a matter of fact, I have," Starscream said slyly. The femmes looked at him uncertainly, but he soon alleviated their concerns. "Oh, but don't worry, I think you're all going to enjoy teaching those _losers_ a lesson," he told them.

After a few moments, Tailwind placed a hand over her mouth in sudden realization. " _Ooooh_!" She whispered something to her friends, and they all looked back at Starscream in surprise, but then erupted into laughter and began to chatter emphatically among themselves.

"That's rather devious," Slipstream finally said, "but, you know… I think it might actually work."

Oh, yep, they were really going to enjoy the upcoming weekend.


	6. Chapter 6 - Tactical Manoeuvres

**Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 6 – Tactical Manoeuvres

 _I've always said that before every victory you will always find a solid plan of action based upon strategic insight, forethought, and good old common sense. This doesn't only apply to battles; it's equally applicable in many other areas of life._

 _For us new Decepticon recruits, in particular, nowhere else would our aptitude for winning be more consistently put to the test than at the Academy. It was during our time there that we learned what we were made of, as well as who our friends were._

 _The fourth and final day of our Orientation began with open sparring inside the large combat arena, which served as an introduction to our regular close combat training sessions, during which there were only two main rules: no long-range weapons allowed, and the one left standing was the winner._

 _Regardless, it was certainly a year to remember… and one we'd never forget._

 _Δ_ _Onslaught_

* * *

"Alright, listen up recruits! There's no such thing as a Decepticon who isn't willing to step up and fight. Now, I don't care how good you think you are, or how pathetic you _actually_ are, I'm going to promise you all one thing – by the end of your training here you are all going to become highly effective fighting machines, worthy of a place in our army."

 _Knockout, our combat instructor, was always pumped and ready to go, and a real good fighter, too. He demanded only the very best from us, and made sure that none of us ever quit. It was his mission in life to turn every single recruit into a semi-decent fighter, no matter what. Or at least try._

"No, I – I can't. I, um, have a headache." Triggerhappy's red optics looked up fearfully at Dirge, who stood beside Knockout with his arms crossed and a smug look upon his face.

"You have a headache?"

The Alpha recruit nodded emphatically, but Knockout wasn't buying it. He sighed, moved his attention to one of the other house mates. "Oh, okay. What about you? Step forward and show me what you've got."

Misfire shook his head determinedly. "Not without a weapon, sir."

"You're allowed a weapon. Just take your pick from any of these…" Knockout strode over to a wall lined with all descriptions of melee weapons, ranging from swords and cutlasses, to hammers, battle axes, and everything in between.

"Oh, no… that's not what I meant," Misfire explained.

A perplexed pause. "Then, what _did_ you mean, recruit?"

"I meant not without a _real_ weapon, sir. You know, the kind that shoots."

"I see." Knockout sighed resignedly. "In case you haven't realized it yet, this class is all about developing your close combat skills, not munitions." He moved his attention to the next mech in line. "Alright, let's see… what about you?"

"I can't fight him, sir," Blowpipe responded, shaking his head at the prospect of getting his tailpipe kicked by his fearless house mate.

"Why not?"

"Well, what if one of us gets hurt? Or I get kicked out of the Academy for breaking a rule?"

The gathered recruits from all the other Houses, including Zeta and Prima, couldn't help but snigger at his excuses, as Knockout shook his head in exasperation. "This is the _War Academy_ , recruit. How will you ever be accepted into the Decepticon army if you won't even try?" He glanced around at the other Alpha recruits, looking for a mech who wasn't afraid to step up and spar against Dirge. "You look like you might be able to hold your own," he decided, pointing at Thrust. "Forward, please."

"Who, me?" The red jet looked surprised, but then Ramjet shoved him forwards, and he reluctantly took up his fighting stance against Dirge.

"Okay, and begin." As soon as Knockout gave the order, the entire arena settled down as all optics watched the two Alpha jets prepare to spar one another. They both looked determined, albeit it was obvious that they were both holding back, each reluctant to deliver the first strike. Then Dirge broke the standoff, aiming a punch at his house mate's chin. Thrust blocked and retaliated with a few jabs to the mid-section.

"Good, that's good. Keep going. Don't stop, and don't let your guard down… that's it. Good!" Knockout circled around them, watching his students closely as they became more comfortable sparring against each other. "Keep your optics on him, Dirge… don't leave yourself open to attack. Hard and fast, hard and fast." After several more minutes of friendly practice, Knockout ended the match. "That's a good start, but I want you both to practice your offensive techniques. Alright, who else wants to try?"

Ramjet stepped forwards this time, eager to show off his own close combat skills to his trine mates, not wanting to feel left out. Knockout was pleased, and then looked around for a willing opponent. "Alright. Who else wants to put their skills to the test? How about one of you?" His gaze settled upon the Delta recruits.

None of them seemed particularly eager or interested, until Skywarp stepped forwards, surprising even his fellow house mates. Ramjet gave the purple and black jet a suspicious look, and then balled his fists in anticipation of his imminent win. Thrust whispered something to Dirge, who chuckled.

"If you quit now, I might let you get away with only a few scratches," Ramjet teased the Delta jet.

Skywarp was not intimidated by his words. He stepped up casually and gave his opponent a crooked smile, before taking up his fighting stance.

"Alright, ready… begin," Knockout called, and again, the entire combat arena fell silent as all optics were fixated upon the two challengers. Ramjet lunged forwards in a mock attack, attempting to confuse his opponent and put him off guard, but Skywarp was quick to adapt and he moved in close to deliver a surprise right hook, swinging his arm around with what seemed like the strength of three mechs combined.

"Oomph!" The sucker punch smacked Ramjet hard in the face and he stumbled backwards before crashing aft-first to the floor.

As he lay sprawled on the ground, pressing a hand to his left cheek, Knockout declared the match over and Skywarp the winner, but then Ramjet pushed himself back up to a standing position, as all assembled recruits looked on in surprise. He looked at his energon-stained hand before squeezing it into a fist. "You're going to pay for that, you tinplate turkey!" he declared and lunged without warning, his coned helm pointing like a deadly missile that was heading straight for Skywarp.

"Sky, watch out!" Thundercracker tried to warn him.

 _That's when my instincts kicked into high gear and I stepped in. I grabbed the Alpha jet's head with both hands, stopping him dead in his tracks. It was enough to give Skywarp the time he needed to move well clear of danger. If I hadn't intervened, he would have been slagged for sure._

When Ramjet's best buddies realized what was happening, they quickly rushed in to try and help pull Onslaught off him, but the Delta recruit had a firm grip around the jet's head. Less than a few seconds later, Thundercracker joined the fray, followed by Slugslinger and his four friends from House Alpha. Then Blast Off, Brawl, Swindle and Vortex volunteered to even the score for House Delta, as did Starscream.

It was no friendly sparring match this time – it had erupted into an all-out brawl.

 _After that morning's minor incident in the combat arena, House Delta and House Alpha were forbidden any interaction for the rest of the day, which suited us just fine. Still, Ramjet didn't bother hiding the fact that he really wanted to fashion Skywarp a new exhaust port; the scowl on his face whenever he caught sight of the Delta seeker kind of said it all._

During break, House Delta recruits sat in one corner of the rec room with the Zetas, whilst the Alphas sat at a table in the opposite corner by themselves, as far away from the rival House as possible. They had been silent for a good while, until finally Ramjet stood up suddenly in frustration. "I don't care about the penalty; I'm going to go and show that slag sucker just who he's dealing with–"

Dirge reached up and grabbed his friend by the forearm with a firm grip, forced him back down into his seat. "Just cool it, would you? Unless you _want_ to get us all kicked out of the Academy?" Ramjet crossed his arms and sank lower into his seat, as Dirge continued speaking in a lowered voice. "Look, we'll get 'em back, one way or the other. Don't you worry about it. I've got an idea." His friend glanced across at him with renewed hope, while Triggerhappy, Misfire, Slugslinger, Greasepit and Blowpipe looked at one another in fearful curiosity. Dirge turned to them and gave them all a quick, stern look. "There'd better not be a peep coming out of any of you five about this, do you hear me?" Then he added after brief consideration, "Not if you want in."

Misfire shook his head fervently, his optics lighting up with the promise of untold mischief. "Oh, we won't say _anything_."

"Yeah, we won't tell another living mech, we promise," said Triggerhappy.

"Our lips are sealed," offered Greasepit, making a zipping motion across his mouth with his fingers.

"Good," Dirge said, looking satisfied. "Because we might need you losers."

 _Every single recruit on campus was no doubt looking forward to the big party weekend, but before the day was over we had one final session. The instructor's name was Sarge, and he specialized in tactical operations, which would turn out to be my favourite subject at the Academy._

"Who here can tell me what the difference is between a good Decepticon, and a _great_ Decepticon?" The large lecture hall was packed with many recruits from all the Houses. "Anyone? Okay, let's see." He scanned the crowd of recruits until he settled upon a larger, strong looking one. "What about you, what's your name?"

"Onslaught."

"Onslaught, perhaps you can tell us the difference between a good Decepticon and a great one. What's your answer?"

"Uh, a great Decepticon never loses his battles. He never gives up, and never quits on his team, no matter what," he said.

Sarge paced back and forth across the floor, listening patiently, his hands clasped behind his back. "Uh huh. That's not a bad answer. And is that what you want to strive towards, Onslaught – to become a great Decepticon?"

"Uh, sure," Onslaught replied in agreement.

Sarge turned around to face him, before sweeping his gaze across the hall at all the gathered recruits. "Now, would you like to know what _I_ think the difference is between a good Decepticon, and a great one, cadet?"

"Sure," Onslaught replied.

"Then, let me tell you," Sarge continued, loud enough for every mech in the hall to hear. "The difference between a good Decepticon and a _great_ Decepticon, is that a great Decepticon… is usually also a dead one." Whispers of curious surprise echoed around the hall, before it quietened down again in anticipation of what Sarge had to say next. "So, remember: don't try to be great. Just be a good Decepticon. That's all we'll ever ask of you." His gaze settled upon Onslaught once again. "Does that make sense, cadet?"

"Yes, sir," Onslaught replied.

"Good. Now, a good Decepticon will always abide by our Warrior's Code of Honour. Does anyone know what that is?" No responses. "No? It is what every single one of you must learn to live by. Every decision you will ever make, every word you will ever speak, and every action that you will ever take… as a Decepticon, must _always_ come from a place of honour. Because without that, all your best-laid plans, or all your most perfectly executed strategies, will ultimately fail to achieve their end result – and that is, to _win_."

 _Meanwhile, campus med-bay:_

"I can't believe I'm going to be stuck here with all you losers during the welcoming party this weekend. Sucks huge ball bearings!" Dead End whined.

"Yeah… instead, we should be out there looking for some pretty femmes to go to the party with," Drag Strip added with a touch of sarcasm.

Viewfinder whipped his head around at the mention of femmes. "Hey, that's a _great_ idea!"

"Yeah, and then maybe if we're lucky they'll come over to our place and get over-energized!" his friend Spectro chimed in, excited by the prospect.

"And maybe, if we're _really_ lucky, they might even let us see what's under their–" Spyglass added.

"Just shut the frag up, would you?" Motormaster snapped at them. "No femme would _ever_ allow any of you to see what's beneath her armour plating, let alone go anywhere within ten mechano-meters of her," Understandably, he was not in a very good mood.

No one said anything further for a whole minute, until one of the Warriors spoke up. "Well, I bet _I_ could get a femme to like me."

Motormaster stared at him for a moment, before reaching across his berth-side table to grab a bowl of unconsumed energon soup from a tray. Then he leaned forwards on his med berth and flung the bowl at Warrior. It landed neatly upside down on top of the Omni recruit's head, the thick soup trickling slowly down his face and neck.

 _Rec room, later that evening…_

Triggerhappy, Misfire, Slugslinger, Blowpipe and Greasepit were seated together at a table, celebrating the fact that they had survived the first week of the War Academy together. And just like every other recruit, they were very much looking forward to letting loose at the big welcoming party on the weekend.

As the high-grade began to flow freely among them, they almost failed to notice the femmes of House Prima sidling up to their table, each holding a can of energon.

"Hi, boys," Slipstream greeted them, smiling mischievously as she glanced around the rec room, taking note of who was around. Only the recruits of House Zeta – no sign of Dirge, Ramjet or Thrust. That was good. "Mind if we join you?" she asked sweetly.

Triggerhappy almost lost his mouthful of energon when he realized who had stopped to talk to them. Misfire stared up at the femme, frozen in his seat. Blowpipe gave him a hard jab in the side with his elbow.

"Um… uh… ah, hoo wow," Slugslinger blurted out, unable to contain his excitement. He could hardly believe their luck.

Greasepit gave her an awkward grin. "Sh.. suuure," he drooled.

Slipstream glanced at her house mates and they shared a few giggles amongst themselves, before she turned her attention back to the Alpha mechs. "Oh, have we caught you at a bad time?" she queried them all as she took her seat opposite Misfire, her expression now one of deep concern. She was going to enjoy playing this up.

"Uhhhhh… noooo," Misfire responded, slapping himself awake. "Noo, not at all."

"Oh, well, that's good," the purple and teal jet replied, relieved. "Because, well… you see, we really need to ask you mechs a favour. Oh, I hope you don't mind?"

Triggerhappy looked as though he was in a state of shock – or in a deep, drunken, stupor – it was hard to tell exactly which. "Sure! We'll do anything you want," he finally said without thinking.

Slipstream tried her best to keep a straight face. "Oh, that's wonderful – thank you so much. We _really_ owe you guys one." She smiled with deep relief.

"Uh, wait a nano-sec," Blowpipe interrupted, as if there was a piece to the puzzle he hadn't quite figured out yet. "What, uh, what is it that you need us to do?"

Misfire reprimanded him with a shove. "Shhh, let her _speak_ ," he admonished his house mate, the energon obviously getting to his cranial circuits.

Slipstream leaned in closer to the five mechs and gave them all a very seductive smile. She played with the rim of her energon canister with the tip of one finger. "Well, you see, we have nobody to accompany us to the welcoming party this weekend… so, we were hoping that all of you fine mechs would maybe like to… I don't know… go with us?"

Triggerhappy's face suddenly turned a shade darker. He stared straight ahead, his optics as if on fire. "Uh-oh no," he uttered in a tiny, high-pitched voice, before quickly getting up to leave. "I think I need to go to the waste extraction facility. 'Scuse me," he said quickly, before rushing out of the rec room in a hurry.

Windspeed placed a hand over her mouth as she watched him leave, trying very hard to stifle a giggle.

"So, is that a yes, then?" Nightracer asked the remaining Alpha mechs with all the sincerity she could muster.

"Shh… um – uh-huh, sure," Misfire finally answered, nodding his head emphatically.

"Great! I guess we'll see you guys back at your place… tomorrow, then?" Slipstream said, smiling as she stood up again.

Slugslinger could not conceal his bewilderment. "Holy scrap!" he exclaimed quietly to himself, shaking his head as if he were trying to keep himself awake.

The rest of the femmes all got up to leave as well, taking their drinks with them. They waved a final goodbye to the four remaining mechs before walking away, giggling and smiling amongst themselves.

Greasepit and Blowpipe glanced at each other, speechless, while Misfire looked down into the canister of high-grade in his hand. "I must be completely wasted," he said, before slowly turning the can upside down and watching its liquid contents spill onto the floor.


	7. Chapter 7 - Revenge is Sweet

**Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 7 – Revenge is Sweet

 _Looking back on our early days at the Academy, I can't help but cringe every time I think about the Prank Wars. Most of the time we got away with it, and sometimes we didn't, but if nothing else there were some funny moments, to be sure, although I guess that did depend on who happened to be on the receiving end of the prank at the time. And I'll tell you another thing, too – revenge_ is _indeed sweet._

 _When I first got to know the Deltas, I thought they were just a bunch of over-privileged, stuck-up aft-wipes who enjoyed nothing more than taking the piss out of us, as they say. Well, nothing much has changed since, to tell you the truth, except that we all eventually grew up some and these days we can at least stand being around each other - a great achievement in itself, really._

 _Oh, yeah, and by the way, contrary to popular belief I don't really hate Starscream, or Thundercracker, or Skywarp… nah… we're all Decepticons, after all. Sometimes, though, I still get the urge to send them flying straight into a black hole… or watch as they get pulled helplessly towards a huge electromagnet… even if it's only in my imagination._

 _α_ _Dirge_

* * *

 _House Alpha, the next morning:_

Triggerhappy, Blowpipe, Slugslinger, Greasepit and Misfire were seated close together on the sofa in their lounge room, whispering intensely amongst themselves. So intensely, in fact, that they failed to notice their three house mates walk up to them.

"Care to share what's got you losers so captivated?" Dirge asked them, and they all jumped in surprise.

"Oh, sorry, we didn't see you," Blowpipe replied, nervously playing with his fingers.

"Uh… we were just saying that we can't wait to see everyone at the party this afternoon," Misfire added, glancing anxiously at the door.

Dirge shook his head in mock disappointment. "You know, you ought to just save yourselves the embarrassment. No one's leaking energon waiting to see you morons, _believe_ me," he said, and the three of them laughed.

The five Alpha mechs looked at one another, feeling embarrassed. "Well, actually, we've all been invited to go out with, uh…" Misfire began, but did not have the heart – or the ball bearings – to tell Dirge and his two buddies about the femmes.

Dirge crossed his arms. "Pfft. Oh, yeah? Who invited you? The instructors don't count." Another round of laughter.

"Oh, no, it's not–" Triggerhappy began, but was elbowed hard in the midsection by Misfire. "Oh, _owwww_ ," he mouthed, trying to hide his reaction from the three cone heads.

"It's not, _what_?" Dirge demanded.

"Uh, nothing," Misfire quickly cut in, glancing at his team mates in an effort to get them to change the subject. "So, uh, what's our mission?"

Dirge smirked, leaned in closer towards them. "Okay, so here's what I'll need you to do…"

 _Assembly hall:_

The long awaited welcoming party had finally arrived. Decepticon recruits from across campus began to trickle into the large hall, making their way to the self-serve energon dispenser before wondering off to meet and greet. Two instructors were present, keeping a watchful optic upon the new cadets to make sure that everyone remained on their best behaviour.

The atmosphere was lively and filled with chatter, and there was soft, calming music playing in the background, specially selected by The Nameless One (he'd been dubbed "Joe" by Rumble to "keep things real", though he'd not shared his opinion about his new nickname thus far).

Slogger, who kept an optic on the queue at the energon dispenser, turned his attention to the Delta recruits, and one purple and black seeker in particular. "I heard you started a small war against one of the other Houses yesterday," he said to Skywarp, eyeing him warily, "by attacking one of the cone heads. This true?"

"No, sir. At least, I wasn't trying to start a war," Skywarp replied, appearing sincere. "I mean, it was close combat training. I was _supposed_ to hit him."

His friends chuckled in amusement, which did not help his case. Slogger wasn't convinced. "So, you weren't trying to impress your house mates or anything like that?"

"What? No way." The Delta recruit shook his head, surprised that Slogger would even make such a suggestion about his character.

"Then, what were you thinking?" When he received puzzled looks from the gathered recruits, he elaborated. "You do realize, don't you, that cone heads have a reputation for sending quite a few of your flyer types straight to the emergency room with a sore aft. They know how to use the shape of their heads to good advantage, let me tell you," Slogger said.

Starscream laughed out loud. "I had no idea you had such a great sense of humour, sir."

When their instructor turned to face the star seeker, his expression was quite serious. "I wasn't trying to be _funny_ , cadet."

"Wait, so you mean it's actually true?" Thundercracker asked in surprise, not to mention much amusement. He had heard several cone head rumours, but could never quite believe the stories.

"Oh, you better believe it," answered Slogger. "Seen it happen right in front of me, once. Almost felt sorry for the cadet."

"You mean it happened to one of the recruits?" Thundercracker ventured. "Anyone we know, sir?"

"Nope. This is going back a few years." Then Slogger gave the Deltas one last piece of advice, before wondering off to greet some new arrivals. "I'd watch myself around those Alpha cone heads, if I were you. Their kind have always been trouble, as far back as I can remember."

The three Delta seekers looked quietly at one another as they contemplated Slogger's timely advice. "Why _did_ you do it, Sky?" Thundercracker asked his friend discreetly after a minute. He'd been meaning to ask Skywarp about yesterday's incident, since he was one of the few who could tell when the purple and black seeker was holding something back. "Come on, spill it."

Skywarp shrugged. "You remember the speed challenge at the aero dome?"

"Sure, how could we forget," Thundercracker replied.

"Well… Ramjet rammed right into me without warning, knocked me out of the race," Skywarp said. No further explanation was necessary.

Looks of realization and understanding came over both Starscream's and Thundercracker's faces. "Now that you mention it, Dirge almost did the same thing to me," the former said.

"Yep. Thrust as well, tried to pull a similar trick on me. All three of them played dirty during that race," Thundercracker added.

"So you sucker punched him?" Starscream laughed again, this time at the memory of his friend's deliberate act of revenge. "Well, if you ask me, he deserved it."

Skywarp smiled. He was glad that he had their support.

 _House Alpha:_

Just as Dirge finished telling his five house mates what he wanted – no, _expected_ – of them that day, the door buzzer went off, and all five jumped in their seats. They looked at one another in what resembled mortal fear, but then they leaped up and raced to answer the door all at once.

"I'll get it!" they proclaimed in unison, legs and arms flailing and clanging against one another as each attempted to be the first to reach the front door, all the while completely ignoring the questioning expressions of Dirge and his trine mates.

"What the frag's gotten into _them_ this morning?" the Alpha ring leader asked his cohorts, to which they only shrugged uncertainly.

Triggerhappy opened the door for the femmes. The sight of them caused all five to freeze where they stood, their optics wide as if under a hypnotic spell whilst untold pleasures of the imagination struggled to break free from their silent constraints.

"Well, hello, boys," Slipstream said, breaking the awkward silence. "Are we ready?"

In the background, and quite clearly in the femmes' line of sight, Dirge's face suddenly fell as he saw the five attractive figures of House Prima standing right outside the door. He could hardly believe what he was witnessing. "What the… _frag_?" he whispered.

 _What in the Pits were those femmes doing, showing up at our house so they could accompany our loser_ _house mates, of all mechs, to the party? Smiling at them, even_. _And, to add insult to injury, they completely ignored me and my two best friends, Ramjet and Thrust, as if we weren't even there_.

Dirge's optics narrowed, focusing upon Windspeed, and as Blowpipe, Triggerhappy, Misfire, Greasepit and Slugslinger happily, though nervously, followed the femmes outside, the door closing behind them, she didn't even cast a glance back to see if, maybe, he and his two companions might like to join them. He felt his energon churn inside him with growing anger, together with a sudden thirst for vengeance.

Oh, _someone_ had put those femmes up to this, he _knew_ … and it wasn't too hard for him to guess who he, or _they_ , might be.

 _One thing I learned that day, though: never trust a bunch of losers with an important mission when they're in the company of femmes, even if they happen to be your own house mates._

Only a short while later, the party was well under way. Tailwind, who had not shown the least bit of embarrassment or regret upon entering the assembly hall by Misfire's side, began to tell him all about the mathematical probabilities that determined the geometric arrangement of any constellation. A stupid smile was permanently etched onto his face, even though he'd never shown any interest before in the topic – nor was he able to comprehend the meaning of any sentence that came out of her mouth.

Across the other side of the room, near the energon dispenser, Triggerhappy was doing everything he could to keep from running to the waste extraction facility every time Windspeed made optic-to-optic contact with him, so after a while she just gave up and made sure to keep her gaze focused in the opposite direction. He still could not believe his luck that a femme – and not just any femme, but one of _the most popular_ femmes at the War Academy – was showing any interest in him at all, laughing and talking and generally being very nice to him. Not even in his dreams had he ever thought that something like _this_ could ever happen to _him_.

Of course, the same sentiments held true for the rest of his house mates. Slugslinger had been trying to keep it together ever since Nightracer had personally selected him to be her escort to the party, though the fact that she had also insisted on staying by his side afterwards – even when it meant that the two of them would be seen together _in full public view_ of the entire Academy – had made him question his very sanity and well-being to the point that, eventually, he'd had to excuse himself to report directly to the campus med-bay. His excuse? He may have caught some sort of virus, and wouldn't be able to live with himself should he find that he'd given it to her. Nightracer hadn't tried to stop him, of course, though she couldn't help but feel sorry for him as she watched him push his way past the crowded room in an effort to make it to the emergency exit without having a little 'accident'.

"What's up with _him_?" Starscream had asked, who'd noticed the mech's very odd behaviour around her.

To which Nightracer had simply smiled and shrugged, calmly sipping at her energon canister as she noted the Alpha cone heads quietly observing their house mates from amidst the crowd.

A short distance away, Greasepit and Blowpipe were oblivious to the world around them except for the two incredibly beautiful, intelligent and amazing femmes who stood before them now; the Alpha mechs looked as though they'd lost a few neural connections in their presence – and, indeed, they had. But neither Nickel nor Slipstream seemed troubled by their odd behaviour; they did most of the talking, whilst the two Alpha mechs simply nodded in agreement to their every word, completely in awe of the two femmes.

"You know, I'd love to go see the premiere screening of the latest release movie. It's starting in an hour over in the amphitheatre. We can go and get our seats early, if you two are up for it?" Slipstream offered.

To which the two heads of the Alpha mechs bobbed up and down in acquiescence. "For you two lovely ladies, we'll do anything," Blowpipe replied, very much falling for her.

Slipstream giggled, then grabbed him by the arm and dragged him through the crowd on their way to the amphitheatre, while Nickel accepted Greasepit's arm and together, now in full view of Dirge and his companions, followed after Slipstream. On their way past, Dirge gave his house mates a warning look, but he was completely ignored; the two mechs were completely caught up in the most wonderful, surreal moment of their lives.

Meanwhile Misfire, who had been so completely mesmerized by Tailwind that he hadn't noticed Dirge walking up behind him, his arms crossed, until he felt a heavy hand upon his shoulder and he jumped, startled. "Oh, Dirge. Heh, it's you!" he sputtered.

Dirge gave Tailwind a curt smile. "May I borrow him for a minute?" he asked her and then, without waiting for a reply, grabbed the mech by the forearm and dragged him several feet away until he was sure they were out of her hearing range. He spun Misfire around roughly by his shoulders until they were face-to-face. Dirge did not look happy. "Well?"

"Well, what?" Misfire's momentary look of confusion was soon replaced by frightened, widened optics. "Oh, _slag_! I'm so sorry – I entirely forgot!" He looked about frantically. "It's just that, well, Slugslinger wasn't feeling too well… and Trigger, I haven't seen him for a while. I think he had to go to the cubicles – again – and Greasepit and Blowpipe must have forgotten, too, because they just–"

"Never mind the pathetic excuses," Dirge said, cutting him off and glancing around the packed assembly hall, eyeing his sworn enemies; most of the Deltas were still gathered by the energon dispenser, chatting with the Zetas. "Looks like it's just up to us now. You still want to help, or not?" Misfire nodded emphatically. "Good. Then don't let him out of your sight," he said, and pushed him towards the Deltas. "We'll take care of the rest. Be ready for my com." The red and white jet glanced between him and Tailwind uncertainly, hesitating. "Forget about her; I just need you to do this _one_ thing – now _go_!" Dirge persuaded him, and finally, with a pained expression, he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

 _While Misfire kept a close optic on the target of our prank, Ramjet, Thrust and I left the assembly hall and quietly made our way to the rec room in the nearby main building. Luckily for us there were no other mechs about, as almost all recruits were gathered in the hall, which meant that we could pretty much do whatever we wanted without being spotted. So while Thrust stood guard just outside the door, Ramjet and I got busy._

Almost half hour later, Misfire received the all-important and highly anticipated private com from Dirge. All was ready. He gulped with trepidation, and crossed his fingers; now it was his turn. He slunk up to the group of Delta recruits to stand beside Skywarp, and offered both Nightracer and Windspeed, who were standing beside him, a huge, nervous grin as he did so. They gave him small smiles in acknowledgment, but then returned their attention to Astrotrain.

"…So then I took one look and I thought, _no way_ , 'n hightailed it outta there," Astrotrain finished saying, capturing all their imagination with his brilliant storytelling. It was getting easier to make them all laugh as the morning slowly transitioned into early afternoon, the energon beginning to flow ever more freely.

"That's the stupidest story I've ever heard," Scrapper said, after a pause, "as if there's such a thing as a planet that looks like a giant aft."

"Ha! But I made you think about it, didn't I?" Astrotrain replied loudly, thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Uh… hey, Skywarp?" Misfire interrupted anxiously. The Delta seeker ignored him, so he reached out to tap him on the shoulder. Louder, this time, "Skywarp?"

"Huh?" The purple and black seeker turned around and saw Misfire staring back at him with frightened, confused optics.

"Um, S-Skywarp?" He was nervous as heck, and he wished that Dirge hadn't made him do this. And where the hell were his other house mates when he needed them, anyway?

"Yeah?" Skywarp returned slowly, his expression one of mild puzzlement yet also of annoyed expectation; he felt like he was talking to a dimwit.

"Uhhh… Knockout just told me that he wants to have a private talk with you… in the, uh, the rec – rec room," Misfire informed him, and then finished with a quick grin, an unconscious habit of his to hide his nervousness.

Thundercracker, who had overheard, gave his friend a puzzled look. "Why would Knockout want to talk to you in private?" he asked Skywarp after a beat.

Misfire shrugged, answered for him. "I don't know… he didn't say."

There was another perplexed pause and then Skywarp asked, "What – right now?" To which Misfire nodded emphatically. Skywarp glanced briefly across the assembly hall towards the exit, and then back to Thundercracker.

"Maybe he wants to talk to you about yesterday's training session?" his friend suggested.

Skywarp gave him an I-don't-know shrug. "I guess I'll be right back," he announced reluctantly to the group, turned and left.

 _Our first trick was to get the aft-wipe to go to the rec room by himself. Which he did – willingly._

"Hm, that's odd," the Delta seeker said quietly, once he'd arrived at the hall just outside the rec room. The main building was empty, and the door in front of him was closed. "Knockout, sir?" he asked, louder this time, but there was no response. He hit the control panel beside the door, and it slid open. The room was dimly lit, and it looked like there was nobody around. He took a few steps inside. "Hello, anybody here?" Nope. He was about to turn around and leave, ready to admonish Misfire for sending him over here for nothing, when the sound of the door sliding closed behind him beat him to it, and he spun around, startled.

The very next moment, he heard the sound of two, possibly three, mechs running away down the hall just outside. He rushed to the door and hit the control, but it wouldn't respond. He had been locked in. "Hey, let me out of here!" he demanded, but it was to no avail. He would not be able to leave, he realized with chagrin, without breaking the door down or calling for help on his com, which he was hesitant to do.

That's when the strong smell of fresh energon made him stop, and he slowly looked down at his hands. They were stained pink. Then, glancing about the room, he noticed that the door and the walls were literally covered in the wet, pink substance, as was the floor and ceiling. Even the tables and chairs had not been left untouched. In fact, he'd just stepped into a huge puddle of the pink liquid.

Energon, which still dripped from the dispenser in the far corner, had been spread all around the room to form graffiti in huge, sloppy lettering that covered every inch of wall and ceiling. Various crude messages suggested that 'SLOGGER IS A SLAGGER', 'KNockOUT is a TiNPLatE TurKEY', and that one should 'KISS my AFT', amongst other equally delightful sentiments.

 _Our last trick was to alert Slogger that something was afoot in the rec room. He believed our story easily enough when we suggested to him, with some urgency, that maybe he ought to go and check things out. Ah, yep. Victory belonged to us Alphas that day, and I'm going to say it again; revenge sure is_ sweet _._

A few minutes later, the door opened to reveal Slogger, accompanied by none other than Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust. As the tough-minded instructor slowly but surely began to realize exactly what he was facing, a genuine expression of shock came over him, not to mention utter disgust with the offending seeker, who very much looked as though he'd been caught red-handed.

Skywarp stood there with a similar shocked expression, looking for all the world like he was guilty as sin, whilst the Alpha jets did all they could to keep from breaking into fits of laughter.

"Oh, slag," was all Skywarp could think to say.


	8. Chapter 8 - Naked Mechs and Cannon Balls

**Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 8 – Naked Mechs and Cannon Balls

 _Assembly hall, half hour later…_

Sounds of laughter and celebration drowned out all other voices, much to the annoyance of the Delta and Zeta recruits. When Thundercracker turned to see who were making complete shafts of themselves, he was not surprised to find Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust acting like they'd just won the Alpha Cup Tournament, shoving past several recruits on their way through the assembly hall to get to the energon dispenser. They high-fived each other, huge grins plastered across their faces.

"What's got into _them_?" Thundercracker said, exchanging glances with Windspeed, who shrugged. He looked to Starscream, who was watching Astrotrain blow a huge bubble of energon from his canister using only his nose. "Hey, Starscream – I think something went down."

Starscream didn't catch his words; he was too mesmerized by the bubble trick. "How do you _do_ that–?" His fascination was interrupted by an annoyed tap on his arm from Thundercracker, forcing him to pay attention. The look of concern on his friend's face made him take notice of the rowdy Alphia trio nearby. "They're obviously tanked, Tee Cee. Don't pay them any attention."

"Believe me I normally wouldn't, except that Skywarp's been gone for almost half hour and I don't trust those robot turkeys far as I can shove their heads down the cubicles. I'm going to go find him – I'll be right back."

 _Rec room:_

"Sky?"

Skywarp stopped what he'd been doing momentarily to acknowledge his house mate before returning to his task. He ignored the look of disbelief on Thundercracker's face as he continued scrubbing the floor and ceilings with a long-handled mop. He was clearly upset.

"Sky, what the hell are you doing?"

Skywarp continued to wipe away the energon graffiti on the walls with long, hard strokes. "Can you believe it? Those Alpha cone heads set me up! I got suspended for an entire _week_." He stopped again and turned to his friend, becoming angrier by the second. "Do you know what that means, Tee Cee? It means I'm gonna miss out on a spot for the football team next week! And not only that, but I'm going to be behind everyone else in flying practice! Not to mention the rest of our classes! And not only _that_ , but now I'll never graduate with honours and be accepted into the Decepticon army to serve right alongside you and Starscream because my student record's already ruined, before proper classes have even begun! My life's practically over." Then he returned to his task, angrily scrubbing off the word 'AFT' that had been painted on the wall.

It was obvious to Thundercracker that doing well at the Academy really meant something to Skywarp, even if he _had_ overdramatized the whole consequences thing, just a little. "Who suspended you?"

"Slogger. And he made me stay here until I've cleaned all this up."

"Well, didn't you tell him that it wasn't you?" Thundercracker asked, indicating the last few colorful slogans that still adorned the rec room. "I mean really, who uses phrases like 'butt-hurt' and 'skid stain'? _You_ sure don't."

"That's not the point, Thundercracker!" Skywarp said with a shake of his head. He usually only used Thundercracker's full name when he was either upset or serious about something.

"Then, what _is_ the point?"

Skywarp looked at his friend in exasperation. "The point is that Slogger doesn't know that I don't use 'em."

Thundercracker thought for a moment, determined to save his friend the embarrassment and negative consequences of one whole week's suspension for something he hadn't done. "Wait here – I'm going to go sort this out." With that, he turned and left the rec room.

 _Campus med-bay:_

Motormaster sat up on his berth, disconnected himself from the med equipment, and tested out the functionality of his joints. He seemed to be perfectly fine, so he stood up and began to walk out of the med-bay.

"Wait, where are you going?" Breakdown called out after him. "You haven't been given the all-clear!"

He stopped and looked back at them all. "I feel fine. And besides, I've had it up to here having to lie there and listen to those losers rattling off about all the femmes they've seduced and conquered in their dreams," he said, referring to all four Warriors in particular. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I'm going to the party."

They all watched him leave, and then looked at one another in shock. A moment later, there was a clatter of noise as the rest of the Omni house mates – Breakdown, Drag Strip, Wildrider, Dead End, Spectro, Spyglass, Viewfinder, and the insatiable Warriors – disconnected themselves from their own med berths and rushed out the door after Motormaster.

"Hey, wait for us! Ouch!"

 _Instructors-only lounge_ :

The door was closed, but Thundercracker could hear the sounds of chatter and the occasional chuckle coming from inside the restricted area lounge. He hit the door chime once, twice, and then three times, until eventually the door slid open. A large, intimidating mech stood facing Thundercracker. It was just the instructor he was after.

"The assembly hall's that way and then to your right, recruit. This is a restricted area," the mech replied, and then went to close the door again.

"Slogger, sir? I'm not lost," Thundercracker said, stepping forwards to stop the door from closing again. Slogger looked at him disapprovingly, waited for the Delta recruit to explain himself. "Sir, I really think you should reconsider Skywarp's suspension."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You think I should give him two, then?"

"Two, sir?"

"Two weeks' suspension, instead of one."

"Uh, no, sir. What I meant was–"

"I know what you meant, recruit." Slogger looked at him critically. "Give me one good reason."

"He wasn't responsible for the graffiti in the rec room. He was set up." Slogger reached for the door panel again, but Thundercracker was persistent. "Look, he doesn't slaggin' deserve it! Please, just–"

"Back down, recruit, or I'll have to put _you_ on suspension as well," Slogger replied irately.

But Thundercracker would not back down. He was determined. "If that's what it's going to take, sir, then fine."

After a few tense moments, Slogger shook his head. "You sure have a nerve, you know that?" He paused in thought. "Is he really worth that much to you?"

"Yes, sir, he's my best friend – and if he's going to be punished for something he didn't do, then–"

Slogger interrupted him. "You say he didn't do it. You're so sure about that?"

"I _know_ he didn't do it, sir, or my name's not Thundercracker."

Slogger kept his gaze fixed on him and then, just as Thundercracker was losing hope, Slogger replied, "Alright, then," before once again reaching for the door panel.

"Sir?"

"Did you not hear me, recruit? I said, 'alright, then.' If you say he didn't do it, then he didn't do it." His finger rested on the door button.

"But, what about the suspension–?"

"It's revoked. Now get the scrap outta here before I change my mind." Slogger hit the button and the door slid closed again before Thundercracker got the chance to respond.

He stood there for a moment and then, upon realization of what had just happened, slowly exhaled in sheer relief. "Thank you, sir," he said in a quiet voice, then turned and headed back towards the rec room in search of his friend.

 _The amphitheatre:_

A few minutes before the premiere screening of the latest blockbuster movie, _Naked Mechs and Cannon Balls_ , was due to begin, the lighting inside the amphitheatre dimmed slightly. The auditorium was almost filled after most of the recruits had filed into the large space from the assembly hall.

Slipstream, Blowpipe, Nickel and Greasepit had front row seats, since they had arrived early. Most of their waiting time had consisted of nervous small talk from the mechs and giggling from the femmes (but mostly from Nickel).

Nickel reached across to tap Slipstream on her shoulder, then pointed discreetly behind them to the three occupants in the seats right at the back. It was the Alpha trio, pretending not to look at them. As the movie started, Slipstream had an idea. She leaned in close towards Blowpipe, who was sitting beside her, and placed an arm around his shoulders. "Just go with it," she said, smiling and pushed him down until he was obscured from view by their seat backs.

"Ah, whoa, what – what are you, umm–" Blowpipe whispered, his optics wide with trepidation as naughty thoughts suddenly entered his mind, but Slipstream placed a finger to her lips.

"Shhhhhhhh, just go with it, okay?"

From his seat in the back row, Ramjet crossed his arms and pretended not to notice, but the grimace on his face indicated that he assumed the worst. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to flush Blowpipe down one of the cubicles.

 _Rec room:_

"So, which do you want first – the good news or the bad news?"

Skywarp turned to acknowledge his friend, who had appeared at the doorway again. He had just finished cleaning up the graffiti mess left by the Alpha trio and was putting away the mop. "Hey, Tee Cee," he said, "I thought you were at the party."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"The good news or the bad news?"

"I don't know," Skywarp replied, but then reconsidered. "Fine – I could do with some good news."

Thundercracker walked into the rec room and looked around. He smiled. "Wow, you did one hell of a job. This room's the cleanest it's ever been!"

"So are you going to tell me the good news, or not?" Skywarp replied, ignoring his house mate's mock awe.

"Oh, yeah. Right. The good news, my friend, is that you're not suspended any more. I had a word with Slogger and, well, I got him to change his mind." Thundercracker beamed with happiness at his friend.

Skywarp looked back at him in amazement, his morose attitude suddenly dissipated. "You did what? Really? _How_?" He didn't quite know what else to say, but he was sincerely grateful, not to mention extremely happy with the very good news. "Wow, thanks, Tee Cee, I sure owe you one!"

Thundercracker grabbed his friend by the arm and began to pull him towards the door. "Don't mention it. Come on, let's get out of here."

"Wait – what's the bad news?"

Thundercracker stopped and turned to him momentarily. "The bad news is that you're going to be watching _Naked Mechs and Cannon Balls_ with the rest of us whether you like it or not, which is starting right about now."

"Wait – I'm going to be watching _what_?" Skywarp began with a puzzled expression, but Thundercracker was already dragging him down the hall on their way to the premiere movie screening.

"You'll see – come on!" he urged, as Skywarp hurried to catch up with him.

 _The amphitheatre, middle rows:_

Thundercracker and Skywarp took their seats beside the rest of their house mates, in the middle rows. Filing into the seats directly behind them, they recognized the same recruits who they'd encountered on their first day a week ago. The very same ones who'd had their afts kicked by the Deltas.

"Hey, aren't you the same mechs who got their afts kicked by us? House Omni, right?" Skywarp said to them.

Their leader, and the largest of them, gave him a scowl. "Yeah, so?"

"Well, we're House Delta, by the way," Skywarp said, introducing himself and his house mates. He was too much in a good mood to care. "No hard feelings?"

Instead of ignoring him, Motormaster responded in kind, though he was still a little reluctant. "Apology accepted, and just ignore anything coming out of their mouths," he said, indicating the four Warriors. "It'll only make you want to slap them."

" _Shhhhh_! I'm trying to watch the movie," Spyglass admonished. He was interrupted by one of the Warriors hitting him on the arm to get his attention. " _What_?!"

Warrior could only point and stutter. There, seated in the front row ahead of them, were the femmes of House Prima. Three of them were accompanied by mechs, the other two were not. "L-Look! R… real f-femmes!"

All four Warriors, along with Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder, began to drool.

 _The amphitheatre, back row:_

"Hey, look who just arrived," Ramjet said, crossing his arms and nodding towards the two Delta seekers with disdain as he watched the late arrivals, Thundercracker and Skywarp, take their seats beside their fellow house mates. "Something's not right. He's a little too happy," he commented after a pause, as he watched Skywarp talk with some mechs in the row behind him.

"Maybe he enjoyed cleaning up our mess in the rec room. We should make him clean out all the cubicles next," Dirge joked, and all three chuckled in agreement.

 _The amphitheatre, front row:_

"So, uh… you know, I was wondering if, uh, well – if you'd maybe, you know – wanna go out with – with, uh… with me again, maybe next – next weekend?" Misfire asked Tailwind. It had taken him a true warrior's courage to even ask her this simple question, yet she seemed to be fully engrossed in the movie and hadn't even heard him. So he tried again, this time in a louder voice. "Tail – Tailwind? Would you, uh – I mean – would you like to, uh, you know, go out with me again next weekend?"

When she finally glanced at him, she smiled politely. "Oh, that's very sweet, thank you for the thought," she said, and he couldn't stop a wide grin from forming. But then: "But, you know, I really _am_ kind of busy next weekend, so… sorry." She shrugged, returned her attention to the movie.

His grin faded. "Oh, okay, that's no problem. What about the weekend after?"

Again, she smiled apologetically. "Sorry, no. I'll be busy then, too," she said.

"Okay… how about – _any_ weekend you want?" he persisted.

She shook her head. "Mmm, no, sorry. Come to think of it, I'll be busy _every_ weekend this year, too," she informed him with regret, and gave him the sweetest smile before returning her attention to the movie once again.

His fuel pump sank and he slumped down into his chair, uninterested in the naked mechs that had just appeared on screen – they were acting like a bunch of losers around the femmes. Just like he was, he realized.

Nearby, Greasepit was not having much luck, either. Every time he reached across with the intention of putting his hand on Nickel's arm (like that was ever gonna happen, right?), Nickel gently but firmly pushed him away. She couldn't stop giggling at the sheer stupidity of the naked suitors in the movie. "Why do mechs behave like such dorks around femmes?" she asked in exasperation, shaking her head and chuckling to herself.

 _The amphitheatre, back row:_

"This movie's for suckers," Dirge decided, not impressed. However, he and his house mates had not come here to watch the movie. They had come here to keep an optic on things, but more importantly they had come here to stir up some trouble. "Hey, where are the other two stooges? I only see Misfire, Blowpipe, and what's-his-name."

"Greaseball?" Thrust offered.

"Heh. Yeah." Dirge carefully loaded a modified dart gun he'd brought into the theatre with him with a capsule of green goo, aimed it at the back of Greasepit's head, and fired.

 _The amphitheatre, front row:_

"Ahh!" Greasepit whispered, touching the back of his neck with his hand and feeling something slimy. He turned to look behind him in the theatre, but he could not pinpoint who had targeted him with the bright green slime bullet.

"Is something wrong?" Nickel asked him, annoyed by his distraction.

"Uh, no. Nothing's wrong." He turned back to watch the movie. Ten seconds later, Greasepit felt another hard splat. "Hey!" He turned quickly around to try to catch the culprit red-handed, but he could not pick him out so he gave up and settled back in his seat. But a moment later, Blowpipe suddenly yelped in surprise.

"What the… hey, who did that?" Blowpipe said, looking about angrily. He had a huge, slimy glob of goo splattered all over the back of his head.

 _The amphitheatre, back row:_

Not wanting to stop now, Dirge let loose some more goo bullets; this time, however, he decided to test Providence. He lined up his aim at one of the Delta recruits.

He targeted Astrotrain, and fired. Perfect shot! Right in the back of his neck. Next target: Starscream. _Splat_! Next: Soundwave.

 _The amphitheatre, middle row:_

Astrotrain and Starscream both reached behind to touch their necks and felt the soft bullet that had just hit them, making a gooey mess on their fingers. They exchanged glances with one another, and then with Soundwave, who was wiping goo off his shoulder.

"Hey, what the f***?!" Astrotrain said, looking around behind him at all the recruits in the theatre, but he could not see anyone with a dart gun.

 _The amphitheatre, back row:_

Muffled laughter was followed by the inconspicuous reloading of the weapon. "Let's see… who's gonna be next?" Dirge aimed carefully, making sure he wasn't being seen, and fired off two more rounds.

 _The amphitheatre, middle row:_

When the goo splattered all over the back of Bonecrusher's head, he jumped in his seat startled, and then slowly turned around to look behind him, one hand balled into a fist. Beside him, Scavenger noticed the bright green goo on his house mate's head and turned to look behind him just in time to see someone in the back row aiming a dart gun directly at him! _Splat!_

"Oh, yuck!" Scavenger exclaimed, wiping the goo off his forehead. By now, most of the recruits seated in the middle rows were wondering who was shooting goo balls at them and distracting them from the movie, so it was a good thing, then, that Dirge had at last been spotted. "It was Dirge!" Scavenger yelled out, standing up and pointing towards the back row.

But no sooner had the Alpha recruit been exposed for his crime than he dashed out of the theatre via the nearest exit as fast as lightning, before anyone had a chance to catch him. Ramjet and Thrust followed him out, laughing uncontrollably.

 _Assembly hall, later that evening…_

"Ugh, so immature," Nightracer commented, shaking her head as she watched the Alpha trio re-enter the assembly hall. All three looked obviously over-energized.

"Where are the mechs you're supposed to be with this evening?" Thundercracker asked both her and Windspeed.

"Oh, you mean Triggerhappy? He had to rush to the cubicles this morning. I honestly haven't seen him since," Windspeed replied, shrugging.

"But that was hours ago," Skywarp noted.

"I know," she replied.

"Slugslinger came down with some sort of virus," Nightracer explained, "I think he went back to his house."

Just then, Tailwind and Misfire walked over to join the group. Misfire's optics grew wide with trepidation and guilt when he saw Skywarp giving him a mean look. He crossed his fingers, hoping that he would be let off the hook, but Skywarp had no intention of doing so.

The purple and black Delta recruit strode right up to him, grabbed his arm and twisted it, then spun him around until the Alpha recruit was in a headlock.

"You lied to me, you little prick," Skywarp told him. "You told me Knockout wanted to talk to me in the rec room before."

"Oh, scrap, I'm sorry," Misfire pleaded. "I'm really, really sorry!"

"Why'd you do it, huh?"

"I didn't want to do it, I swear! Dirge made me do it!" Misfire yelled out in desperation. All of a sudden, the assembly hall went quiet as all heads turned to watch what was going on, while Tailwind had to stifle her laughter with one hand held up to cover her mouth. In the back of the room, Dirge did not look happy with his house mate.

Skywarp made a devious smirk. He was going to make sure the Alpha trio got what they deserved for making him clean the rec room and almost getting suspended, but first he would deal with their messenger, Misfire. "You ever gonna do it again, huh?"

"No! I promise!"

"Good." Skywarp released Misfire, and as the Alpha recruit began to inhale a sigh of relief, glad to be let off the hook with only a reprimand, Skywarp tipped his half-filled canister of energon right over his head without warning.

Misfire stood frozen to the spot with his mouth open in surprise and embarrassment; it was all he could do as Skywarp held the canister upside down over his head, shaking it up and down slowly until he had emptied it of every last drop of energon. Then, when he was done, he carefully rested the container on top of Misfire's head, like a tiny little hat, and gently patted it. As the pink substance dripped all down Misfire's front and wings, pooling on the floor at his feet, the room broke out in laughter.


	9. Chapter 9 - The Anti-Slosh Cure

A/N: Quick trivia: the "Warrior" guy is actually named in G1 canon, but you have to be paying close attention to pick it. Can you describe who says it, and in which episode?

* * *

 **Before We Were Famous**

Memoirs from our early days at the Decepticon War Academy

Chapter 9 – The Anti-Slosh Cure

 _Assembly hall, early the next morning…_

In the aftermath of the welcoming party, the large assembly hall was in complete disarray. Littered with empty canisters, globs of goo splattered across the walls, and puddles of sticky, regurgitated energon from unfortunate cadets who had had too much to drink made it look as though the hall had been hit by a tornado. A few unlucky cadets were lying about on the floor, passed out from their over-indulgence the night before.

Slogger and Knockout surveyed the room, their arms crossed and with expressions of strong disapproval, before the cleaning drones were despatched. As the great clean-up of the assembly hall began, any mech still present was given a strike on his record, as well as a rude wake-up call from Slogger's energy baton. Blowpipe, Misfire and Greasepit were among these unfortunate mechs.

In the adjacent building, occupying one of the cubicles, was Triggerhappy. He had spent most of the night and the early morning purging his tanks, until he realized that he had got his head stuck down one of the waste extraction chutes and couldn't get it out again.

His house mate, Slugslinger, had not fared much better. Shortly after abandoning Nightracer to get to the campus med-bay, he had had a little accident just outside the hallway there and had slipped on the fluid, hitting his head and knocking himself off-line. When he'd finally regained consciousness, to a massive headache, it was already morning and some unknown mech had painted the word "Loser" right down his front in sticky, bright orange goo, as a perfect complement to his blue frame.

But what about the three Alpha cone heads? Well, why don't we go find out where they landed up, shall we?

 _Restricted area storage room, instructors-only building:_

Something stirred, and then a groan. Slowly coming back online, Dirge untangled himself from the pile of limbs that belonged to Ramjet and Thrust, and groggily looked around. He had no idea where he was, or how he'd ended up in here. All he knew was that his head throbbed with a massive hangover. It looked like he was in a huge storage room of some sort, with all manner of spare parts, armor pieces, tools and equipment stacked on overflowing shelves that covered every square inch of the walls and most of the floor space.

He groaned again, and was startled by a sudden flash of white light and the click, click, click of a camera. This was followed by scuffling sounds, and then the door slamming closed.

"Hey, who's there?" he demanded, but it was too late. Then he caught sight of his two house mates before glancing down at his own frame, and stifled a yelp.

Two snugly fitting, shapely armor components covered his chest - one on each side - armor attachments that were pink, and that normally would fit a femme.

But he wasn't alone in his embarrassment - Ramjet and Thrust were also fitted with similar voluptuous defensive coverings. And that's when it finally sank in that some mech had just taken photos of the three of them in such a vulnerable state, and then had fled.

 _Just outside the storage room_ :

Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder bolted from the restricted area as fast as their legs would carry them. Their purpose in life was to watch other mechs and to take pictures, particularly if said mechs happened to be doing questionable or embarrassing things, so when the opportunity had presented itself they couldn't help themselves. They'd watched as the Alpha cone heads had gotten so tanked that they'd decided to break into the restricted area storage room, just because. And the three Watchers had continued to watch them.

 _House Delta:_

When Slipstream awoke, she found herself lying comfortably on a sofa in a lounge room. Her four house mates were all still sound asleep around her, occupying the other sofas and chairs made into makeshift berths, while Nickel looked happy enough crashed out on the floor. Sitting up, she looked around and that's when she realized that they were not in their own house. She held a hand up to her head and groaned.

"Rise and shine, girls," said a deep voice, and she jumped, startled. As Thundercracker, Blitzwing and Skywarp walked into the lounge to join her, her fellow house mates began to stir awake, sitting up, memories of the night before slowly filtering back into their processors.

"Oh, scrap," Tailwind complained, "my head hurts."

"I must have had one too many," said Windspeed, "because all I remember is being chased by these four pipsqueak weirdos. The odd part? They all looked alike."

"I must have had the same dream, because I seem to remember them, too," Nickel said in astonishment.

Thundercracker laughed. "That was no dream. They're the Warriors of House Omni," he explained, throwing them each a small can and taking a seat on the sofa beside Slipstream. "Bottom's up."

"Oh, no thank you, I don't think I can even look at another can of high-grade for an entire week," Windspeed said, offering the can back to him.

"Make that two weeks," Tailwind added in agreement.

However, the Delta seeker insisted. "This stuff isn't high-grade - it's what I like to call the anti-slosh cure. Go on and drink it - it'll make you feel heaps better in no time." He passed one each to Starscream, Astrotrain and Octane as they staggered into the lounge, without waiting for them to ask.

"Anti-slosh?" Tailwind repeated incredulously, staring at the can in her hand. She opened the seal and sniffed it. It looked and smelled just like regular high-grade, except that it was colored green. "Never heard of it." Then she took a chance and tasted it. It was indistinguishable from the regular stuff.

"Yeah. Works like a charm," Thundercracker replied.

"Wow, you're right. I'm feeling better already," said Slipstream, gulping down her anti-slosh.

"I hate to have to ask but... how did we all end up crashing at your place? I hope we weren't any trouble," said Nightracer a little uncomfortably.

Astrotrain replied. "No trouble. You told us those weirdos followed you all the way back to your place last night and then wouldn't leave. Must have been around, what, just after one in the morning? That's when you five showed up here looking for a place to crash. You don't remember?"

Windspeed sighed, putting down her empty can of anti-slosh. "Actually, I do remember that - the more we told those perverts to frag off, the more excited they seemed to get," she said exasperatedly, shaking her head. She was glad they were in the company of the Deltas, who weren't jerks (like those Alphas) or femme-crazed (like the Warriors).

"Hey, don't mention it," Skywarp said, grinning, "oh, and if those weirdos are still hanging around your house when you get back, tell 'em they're gonna get a second round of aft-kicking, courtesy of us Deltas."

"We'll be sure to do that," Slipstream said, smiling.

 _House Omni:_

Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder dashed into their house and slammed the door closed, cycling air as if they'd just run a marathon to the moon base and back.

"What the slag have you three been up to?" said a deep, angry voice, and they spun around to find Motormaster glaring at them, arms crossed. "Come on, spill it!" he demanded. Wildrider, Drag Strip, Dead End and Breakdown were all slumped across their lounge sofas, groaning with the headaches from their hangovers. The Warriors were nowhere to be seen.

The three Watchers looked at one another in consternation. "Uh... n-nothing," said Spyglass.

"Nope, nothing at all!" Spectro shook his head vehemently.

"Nope, we didn't take any pictures of-" Viewfinder clapped a hand over his mouth in an attempt to stop himself. But their game was up.

"So, you three were out taking pictures, ey? Of _what_?" Motormaster demanded, sounding as intimidating as possible. "Show them to me right now, or I'll stuff you all down the cubicles, close the lid and press 'flush'!"

And with that, the Watchers showed Motormaster the polaroids they'd taken of the Alpha cone heads, who were looking completely wasted and wearing femme chest armor. After a few tentative seconds, the Omni leader looked down at them all in disgust. "You three ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I'm going to go and walk off this headache, and then I'm heading to the study hall to try and make up for the whole week I was stuck in med-bay having to deal with you idiots," he proclaimed, before stepping out the front door.

"Wait! Aren't you going to give back our polaroids?" Viewfinder called out after him.

"No slaggin' way!" Motormaster called back.

 _Outside the instructors-only building:_

Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust walked briskly along the path back to their house, purposefully ignoring other mechs' glances. They had since removed their effeminate armor attachments before sneaking out of the storage room and back outside, yet none of them could remember exactly how they'd ended up with them on, or if any other mech had seen it happen - other than the one who'd snuck in and taken photos of them that morning. If they ever found out who he was, they were going to kill him (well, figuratively speaking), but as long as those photos never saw the light of day, nobody needed to get hurt.

 _Study hall, later that afternoon:_

Feeling much better after taking the anti-slosh, the cadets of House Delta had invited the Zetas to spend the rest of the day with them recovering from yesterday's wild welcoming party and maybe catch up on some study in preparation for next week's official classes. After assuring them that they had the perfect cure to hangovers, the Zetas decided to take up their invitation. Meanwhile, the femme cadets of House Prima had returned to their own house to spend the afternoon just relaxing and doing "girl things" together. Thankfully, the Warriors appeared to be nowhere in sight.

Skywarp stared at the huge data book in front of him, entitled _Cybertronian History – The Birth of a New Species_ , and frowned. "Are you going to actually read the entire book, Tee Cee?"

" _Nooo_... at least, not the whole thing today. Just the first couple data tracks," his friend replied, picking up his own copy and starting to read.

Thundercracker'd barely gotten through the first two pages when Scrapper of House Zeta interrupted his concentration. "I didn't get the part about the cannon balls," he said unexpectedly, breaking the silence of the study group.

"Or the naked part, part," Shrapnel said.

Astrotrain laughed out loud. "Don't worry; neither did we," he confessed.

"Yeah, you're in good company," Onslaught commented.

"Although, the naked mechs in the movie last night kind of reminded me of the way those Alpha geeks behave around the femmes," Starscream said, sharing his thoughts of last night's movie. "Minus the cannon balls, I suppose."

"Speaking of those geeks - are you going to get 'em back for almost getting you suspended, Skywarp?" Rumble asked.

"And for hitting everyone with goo balls," Bonecrusher added with disdain.

Skywarp looked up from his reading, having made it through the first page. He didn't particularly enjoy reading or studying, but he was determined to graduate this year with honours, along with his house mates. "Oh, you bet - they're going to regret ever having messed with me," he answered resolutely. "I mean - with _us_."

 _Combat arena:_

Ramjet and Thrust sat in the spectators' chairs at the edge of the dojo, a smaller training room adjacent to the larger combat arena, while they watched Dirge beat the slag out of a practice drone.

"That was one hell of a party. I don't remember much at all after that movie," Thrust said in between the sounds of Dirge's focused punches. His friend was pummelling the drone with hard and fast jabs, pretending it was Starscream. Or Skywarp. Or that other Delta jerk - he'd forgotten his name. He'd purposefully set the drone's skill level to amateur just so he could let off some steam.

"Yeah. We're lucky we weren't caught entering the restricted area. And how the slag did we end up with breast attachments-" Ramjet said in bewilderment, still recovering from the lasting effects of his hangover.

"Shut up. I don't want to hear another damn word about what happened last night, okay?" Dirge cut in. His punches increased in speed and frequency.

"Okay, geez, what's up your afterburner?" the white and grey jet retorted. After several more minutes watching Dirge practice in silence, he stood up to leave. "I'll catch up with you later. I need to sleep off this headache," he said. Then Thrust silently followed him out, until Dirge was left to brood on his own.

 _Study hall, half hour later:_

Skywarp put down his data book and relaxed back in his chair, stretching out his legs and placing his feet on the table beside Starscream, who pushed them off again with mild annoyance. He sighed and looked around the study hall. "Oh, look - it's that Omni guy," he said, waving Motormaster over. The Omni leader accepted Skywarp's invitation to join them.

"Where are the rest of your house mates?" Skywarp greeted him, glad for the temporary distraction from his studies.

"Most of them are still getting over last night." Motormaster picked up Skywarp's copy of the history text and grimaced. "Would you mechs be willing to help me and my house mates catch up on last week's lessons?" he asked. "We missed out."

"I dunno. There's quite a bit you'll need to catch up on," Thundercracker replied dubiously.

"Yeah, like all the combat training, and the tactical stuff, and the rest of the lessons," Rumble said.

"Look - I'll be happy just for a quick rundown of each lesson," Motormaster insisted. He pulled out the polaroids, holding them guardedly in his hand. "Plus I'll trade you for it."

"What do you have to trade?" Skywarp asked curiously. Motormaster showed him the set of polaroids he'd extorted from the Watchers, though he held onto them. After a moment, Skywarp's optics lit up with surprise and mischievous delight. "Holy _slag_! How'd you manage to get your hands on _these_?!"

"Eh, not all of my house mates are entirely useless, I guess," Motormaster replied, shrugging. "So, do we have a deal?"

Skywarp snatched the polaroids from him, a wide grin on his face, and passed them around the table to show the others. "What do you say, guys?" He looked around at all his house mates - they seemed to agree that the pictures were just too juicy to pass up. "We have a deal!" he replied on their behalf.

And so the Deltas spent the rest of the day at House Omni, imparting to Motormaster and his best friends Wildrider, Drag Strip, Dead End and Breakdown, everything they'd learned during last week's Orientation. It turned out to be a fun and rather relaxing evening for all, surprisingly, and not a single drop of energon was shared among them. Also, neither the Watchers nor the Warriors ever showed up.

 _Meanwhile..._

After an exhilarating night of adventure following the femmes of House Prima everywhere they went and being told repetitively by all five to unequivocally frag off (especially by Tailwind - wow, she's _hot_!), the Warriors had decided to spend the entire day away from the optics of any other mech, recuperating from their wild night of femme spotting. Eventually, the four of them had taken up residence inside a service tunnel behind the amphitheatre, where they were sure nobody would find them.

Not surprisingly, the conversation among the four Warriors had quickly turned to their favorite subject: femmes...

"Nickel said _I_ was a little pipsqueak! That was so _hot_!" Yes; for the Warriors, at least, it seemed that last night all their dreams had come true.

"Yeah, well, _any_ one of them can call me a pipsqueak any time they like-"

"Ohhh, Nightracer looks just like one of those hot femmes from that movie we watched the other day..." Drool. "She's so fraggin' hot!"

"No way, Warrior, you stay away from her - she's mine!"

"She's not interested in you. Didn't you see the way she was looking at _me_? She just wanted to frag me right then and there!"

"There's nothing special about you two. On the other hand, she was practically dying to get to know _me_ -"

"You mean when she told you to go frag yourself?"

And so their conversation had gone on like this for most of the day, until it was eventually time for them to return to their house so they could get some proper recharge.

Indeed, as the night cycle descended upon the War Academy, it was time for every new recruit to get some good recharge, if they wanted to be up bright and early in time for the start of official sessions tomorrow.

 _Inside one of the waste extraction cubicles:_

"Help?! Somebody help! I'm stuck! Hello?... anybody? Uh, slag."


End file.
